Who

Formerly the president of digital media and market development at NBC Universal, Comstock is now the chief marketing officer at NBCU's parent, GE.

Backstory

Comstock initially set out to be a doctor and studied biology at The College of William and Mary, before changing her mind and turning to journalism. After graduation, she landed an on-air gig covering the legislature for a regional news service in her native Virginia. When she realized she didn't have the skills to be a TV star, she moved over to the business side and took a series of corporate communications jobs at CBS and Turner. In 1993 she arrived at NBC in New York and was soon named vice president of communications at NBC News. Five years later, Jack Welch moved her up to corporate to serve as GE's veep of corporate communications. She was later upped to chief marketing officer, in which role she tried to update the company's image, replacing the long running catchphrase "We Bring Good Things to Life" with "Imagination at Work." In late 2005, she was dispatched to NBC and placed in charge of the digital media division, where she had the unenviable task of sorting out the future of digital media. She retreated back to GE's comfy confines in 2008.

Of note

Comstock had her hands full during her three-year tenure at NBC. In early 2006, the network paid $600 million to acquire iVillage and although the acquisition pre-dated Comstock's arrival, she was charged with integrating the property into the broader NBC portfolio, a mission that led to a handful of missteps such as the seemingly synergistic—but ill-fated—decision to produce an iVillage TV show. Like most other major media companies, NBC's digital strategy under Comstock (and her boss, Jeff Zucker) proved a little bit schizophrenic. The digital unit was responsible for cutting a deal with Apple in 2006 to sell "webisodes" of various shows like The Office on iTunes; it later declined to renew the deal after a dispute with Apple over royalty rates. Much the same happened with YouTube: First announced a high-profile distribution deal; then it turned around and blasted the site over copyright infringement. And while Comstock and her counterparts at Fox giddily talked up the potential of the online-video site Hulu.com in advance of its launch, the reception was chilly when it finally debuted in early 2008. After wading through the mess at NBCU for almost three years, in February 2008 Comstock was recalled to GE's HQ by Jeff Immelt. She now serves as the chief marketing officer at GE, where she can spend just as much time worrying about the changing media landscape as she can marketing light bulbs and aircraft engines.

In person

Comstock has a rep as a brutally demanding boss and exceedingly tough negotiator. "She's lethal. She could take out your kidney, and you wouldn't know it was gone," a colleague told a reporter shortly after her arrival at NBC. She's not just tough on her underlings, either. When Comstock first joined GE, she was so abrupt on the phone with her colleagues that her boss, Jack Welch, repeatedly crank called her to get the point across.

Personal

Comstock is married to her second husband, an Australian who works in online marketing; she has two daughters, one from each marriage. She and her family live in Weston, Conn.