CableLabs has named Mark Bridges president, effective Aug. 1, 2026. Mark will continue to serve as chief technology officer and will add the chief executive officer title on Jan. 1, 2027. The appointment reflects CableLabs’ long-standing commitment to leadership development and succession planning. With Mark’s 16 years at CableLabs and nearly three decades in communications and software, he is well positioned to lead the organization into its next chapter.
Phil McKinney, who has served as president and CEO since 2012, will remain fully engaged as CEO through the end of 2026, supporting a smooth leadership transition. He will continue to advise the CableLabs Board of Directors and Mark throughout 2027.
Phil Mckinney
Mark Bridges
A Career Built for This Moment
Following an early career leading support and development teams at IBM and MCI, Mark founded and led VCS, Inc., a systems integrator and platform development company focused on building operations and service delivery systems for the telecommunications industry, work he carried through to a successful merger in 2001. He went on to serve as director and chief architect at Avaya, where he helped define the technology strategy and architecture behind Avaya Global Services’ next-generation service delivery platforms.
He joined CableLabs in 2010 and went on to lead the Future Infrastructure Group and spearheaded strategic planning for the future of access network technologies and software platforms. That long-standing career, from founder to architect to strategist, gives Mark the depth of knowledge and leadership experience that will move CableLabs into the future.
“Mark has been central to CableLabs’ technology strategy for more than a decade, including helping lead our expansion into cloud-native architectures, network convergence and AI,” Phil said. “He knows this organization, he knows our members and he knows what it takes to lead at this level. I am proud of what this team has accomplished and confident in where Mark will take it next.”
Shaping the Technology Vision
Since June 2023, Mark has served as executive vice president and chief technology officer, leading CableLabs’ technology and strategy teams and overseeing its core research and development programs, technology investment decisions and the strategic direction of its innovation portfolio. His focus areas include software-defined networks, network as a service and cloud native architectures, work that sits at the center of where the industry is headed next.
“CableLabs has always brought the industry together to solve hard technology problems and open new frontiers for advancement,” Mark said. “That mission drives us forward. I’m committed to accelerating the strong foundation Phil and our team built, and to pushing into what comes next. I look forward to working with our members, partners, employees and the broader industry to pioneer the technologies that will define the future of connectivity.”
Chris Winfrey, chairman of the CableLabs Board of Directors and president and CEO of Charter Communications, credited Phil for his innovation leadership while affirming the board’s confidence in Mark.
Continuity by Design
CableLabs’ executive leadership team will remain in place throughout the transition, keeping continuity intact for members, vendors and employees as the organization moves forward.
Phil’s tenure is part of that continuity. Since joining in 2012 from Hewlett-Packard, where he served as chief technology officer, Phil has led CableLabs through a period of significant growth, expanding its membership from 19 North American operators to more than 50 companies worldwide and bringing SCTE® under its umbrella in 2021. Under his leadership, CableLabs led the development of DOCSIS® 3.1 and 4.0 technologies and the organization’s patent portfolio grew from fewer than 70 patents to more than 1,000, with its annual rate of patent generation increasing more than 20-fold.
“Phil transformed CableLabs from a North American research and development organization into a global innovation leader,” Winfrey said. “Under his leadership, CableLabs expanded its membership, accelerated technology development and strengthened its impact across the connectivity industry. The Board is grateful for Phil’s leadership and service, and we are confident Mark is the right person to build on that foundation and lead CableLabs into its next chapter.”
Read the full press release here.
