The big idea 2.0: Later this year, Comcast plans to offer what it calls an "enhanced cordless phone" that, among other features, will let customers check and respond to e-mail from their home phone's handset.
With two sons and two household PCs, "I get about 13 seconds a month on the computer," she said. She thinks the new feature should appeal to others who have been shut out from screen time.
Forks in her career - and forklifts: Avgiris studied accounting at City University of New York, then worked for the Big Eight accounting firm Touche Ross (before the merger with Deloitte) in Manhattan and then Philadelphia.
At 28, she became chief financial officer for a small forklift manufacturer in Horsham - "a very sexy business," she deadpans - where she enjoyed the 11/2-mile commute from her house and the range of tasks that crossed her desk. Among other things, she handled both investor and human relations.
She joined Comcast in 1992 as a field executive for a succession of territories, doing a cross-continental commute from Philly to oversee operations in places such as Orange County, Calif., where she launched one of Comcast's first digital-cable services. More recently, as an architect of the strategy to expand the company's high-speed Internet service, she helped build that side of the business - now with more than 14 million customers.
The view from the top: Today, Avgiris works on the 53d floor of the new 58-story Comcast Center.
Her desk faces away from the windows, and while she occasionally glances over her shoulder at the view, she says she'll never plaster her face against the glass and look down. "I'm not a heights person."
