Elizabeth "Beth" Comstock is an American

business executive A business executive is a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization. Executives run companies or government agencies. They create plans to help their organizations gr ...

. She is a former vice chair of

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

. She operated GE Business Innovations, which developed new businesses, markets and service models; drives brand value and partners to enhance GE's inventive culture. This unit includes GE Lighting, Current, GE Ventures & Licensing and GE sales,

marketing Marketing is the act of acquiring, satisfying and retaining customers. It is one of the primary components of Business administration, business management and commerce. Marketing is usually conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or ma ...

and communications.

Personal life

Comstock was born in

Morgantown, West Virginia Morgantown is a city in Monongalia County, West Virginia, United States, and its county seat. It is situated along the Monongahela River in North Central West Virginia and is the home of West Virginia University. The population was 30,347 at the 2 ...

, to a schoolteacher mother and a dentist father. She is the oldest of three children. Her family moved to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia where she spent her primary school years. Comstock graduated from

The College of William and Mary ''The'' is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the ...

in 1982 with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

in biology and a minor in anthropology.

Career

Realizing she "want dto tell stories about science", Comstock interned at a public radio station, afterwards transitioning to local television reporting in Virginia and public-access television in Washington, D.C. She moved to NBC as a publicity coordinator in the mid-1980s. After stints at CBS and Turner Broadcasting, she was brought back to NBC News for a turnaround project after a "fake news" scandal nearly collapsed the division. Based on this success, Comstock was recognized by Jack Welch and promoted to higher-level roles inside GE, which owned NBC at the time. In 2003, Comstock began serving as GE's chief marketing and commercial officer, the first CMO in more than 20 years, and created Ecomagination in 2005 as an initiative to drive positive environmental impact from GE and its customers. From 2006, she was President of Integrated Media at

NBC Universal NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is a subsidiary of Comcast and headquartered at 30 ...

overseeing ad sales, marketing and research, and led the company's digital efforts including Peacock Equity, acquiring iVillage.com and oversaw the founding of

Hulu Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...

. Comstock was eventually promoted to Vice Chair of GE. In October 2017, she stepped down from this role to focus on new opportunities. In Sept 2018, Comstock released her first book
Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity and the Power of Change"

Honors and achievements

* Comstock was a member of

Nike, Inc Nike, Inc. (stylized as ''NIKE'') is an American athletic footwear and apparel corporation headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon. It is the world's largest supplier of Sneakers, athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equ ...

's Board of Directors and Trustee president of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. *

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

named Comstock one of "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women" in 2015 and 2016. * On 29 October 2016, Comstock was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 8 in the list of 100 Most Influential Chief Marketing Officers. * September 2018, Comstock named among PRWeek's "Top 20 Most Influential Communicators".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Comstock, Beth College of William & Mary alumni Living people General Electric people 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesswomen 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesswomen Businesspeople from Morgantown, West Virginia Businesspeople from Virginia Year of birth missing (living people)