CableLabs Appoints Former Panasonic CTO, Paul Liao, as President and CEO

US cable-industry research, development and standardization body, CableLabs, said Wednesday that its board of directors has selected consumer electronics industry veteran, Dr. Paul Liao, as its next president and CEO, replacing Dr. Richard Green, who has led the organization since 1988, and who announced last September that he would retire when his contract expires in December, 2009. "Paul gives us the perfect blend of laboratory and research knowledge, as well as experienced business leadership," CableLabs board
chairman, Brian Roberts, who is also chairman and CEO of Comcast, said in a prepared statement. "The Board is united in its view that Paul is the right person to lead the laboratory going forward."

Liao most recently served as VP and CTO of Panasonic Corporation of North America, a company that has been visibly supportive of tru2way, the CableLabs-developed, Java-based standard for advanced interactive TV services (late last year, for example, Panasonic jointly announced with Comcast that tru2way/OCAP was now "active" in the Chicago and Denver areas, with Comcast activating its first tru2way headends in those regions, and Panasonic simultaneously offering its tru2way-enabled Viera HDTV sets in retail at Abt Electronics in Glenview, Illinois, at various Circuit City stores in and around Chicago, and at Ultimate Electronics and Circuit City stores in the Denver area--see [itvt] Issue 8.23 Part 2A; also, back in 2005, Panasonic was one of the first CE vendors to sign an OCAP middleware agreement with CableLabs). According to CableLabs, Liao's tenure at Panasonic saw him leading the company's technology direction and R&D in North America. Prior to joining Panasonic in 1996, he held various positions at Bell Communications Research (Bellcore) and Bell Laboratories. He holds degrees from MIT and Columbia University, and is a recipient of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Millennium Medal. "I feel extremely honored to be selected to follow in the footsteps of Dick Green," Liao said in a prepared statement. "Over the years, I have watched CableLabs create a continuous string of successes and seen it grow in prestige under his leadership. It's an exciting time to be joining CableLabs and I look forward to being a part of the cable industry and to contributing to the industry's technical future."