Lillie recently accepted a new Comcast position as vice president of community investment and executive vice president at the Comcast Foundation, a little-known charity that the company doesn't promote. The change was to be announced today.
The nonprofit foundation, which listed 2006 net assets of $81.6 million, spent $12.7 million in 2007 on grants to 500 organizations around the country. Separately, Comcast itself made charitable contributions it valued at about $167 million last year - about 90 percent of it in the form of televised public service announcements.
Most people don't know about the foundation or the company's charitable outreach in cities and towns, Lillie said. She will be broadening the exposure as she works alongside Joe Waz, the foundation's president.
Question: So, moving to your new job at the Comcast Foundation, does this mean that Comcast's big hiring days are over?
Answer: No, not at all. I think that what is going to happen is that, in this era of competition, we're going to meet the needs of the business as it comes along. So if, in fact, we need to grow, we will grow. But I would never say the days of expansion are over, because it's all going to depend on the needs of the business.
Q: I saw in your bio, one of your goals in HR was to increase diversity of job candidates. Were you able to do that at Comcast?
A: I think we were able to increase diversity. One of the things that we did was we made a real effort to expand our pool. So we really expanded the pool, and the way that we looked for talent. We also hired a person into HR who specifically focused on "How do we increase the pool." . . .
