Management Bios

Management Bios

Charlie Thurston
President

Charlie Thurston serves as the President for Comcast Spotlight. He joined Comcast Spotlight in 2002 and is responsible for leading a team of 3,300 employees in local, regional, and national advertising sales that generated approximately $1.6 billion in gross revenue in 2009. Comcast Spotlight is in 84 TV markets, including 20 of the top 25. Comcast Spotlight sells the local advertising slots on 50+ cable networks (ESPN, CNN, CNBC, History Channel, etc), as well as banners/videos on internet sites (Comcast.net, Vehix.com, Yahoo).

Comcast Spotlight built interconnects in 60+ markets, joining over five million affiliated subscribers from Time Warner, Charter, Cox and BrightHouse. In 2009 they also partnered with Verizon in a landmark deal representing advertising for FiOS subscribers in 10 DMA’s. Similar deals were inked last year to sell the Regional Sports Network inventory for DirecTVand Echostar in multiple markets.

Spotlight is also a pioneer in the new advanced advertising capabilities for television. New products include addressable advertising, interactive ads, telescoping, and video on demand.  Spotlight also deploys interactive iGuide banners that movie studios/programmers now regularly utilize.

Prior to this role he was President/CEO of Adlink, the Los Angeles digital interconnect. Hired as Adlink's General Sales Manager in 1989, Charlie was promoted to Vice President of Sales/Marketing in 1991, and then onto President/CEO in 1992.  Adlink grew from a startup of $750K in revenue in 1988 to $138 million by 2000.

His experience spans 32 years in the cable industry. He was General Manager of Continental Cablevision's Cable Advertising Division from 1986-1989. Prior to that, his career included launching advertising sales for Cablevision Systems in New York, Connecticut and Boston. His career began in 1980 selling cable television subscriptions door-to-door.

Originally from Rye, New York, Charlie holds a BA degree from Williams College, 1980, where he also competed in baseball and football.  He attended the Haas School of Business's Advanced Management Program at UC Berkeley, and is a member of YPO (Young Presidents Organization).

Charlie was recognized by Inc Magazine as an Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist in “Communications” in 1995, and “Technology” in 1996, and was the recipient of “The Silver Bell” Award from the Ad Council in 2005. He serves on the Board of Directors of National Cable Communications (NCC), The Advertising Council, and he is the former Chairman of the Board for The Cable Advertising Bureau (CAB). Charlie is also an avid participant in SkiTAM, which aids The Olympic Disabled Ski Team. Charlie is married with a son and a daughter.

Hank Oster
Senior Vice President, General Manager

Hank Oster holds the position of Corporate Senior Vice President and General Manager overseeing the company’s divisions for national, regional and local sales, advanced media & online sales, corporate data & research and corporate marketing & communications.

Upon joining Comcast Spotlight in July 2002, he was tasked with developing the organization’s overall sales strategy. Currently, he structured the company with four Divisions overseeing the East, North Central, South and West Divisional Vice Presidents. He consolidated the company’s advanced advertising, strategic alliances, on-demand publishing and online sales forces to form a new business unit called - SIMS (Spotlight Integrated Media Sales) positioning Spotlight as the one-stop-shop media solution for advertisers. In addition, he has worked closely with Corporate leadership to expand Spotlight’s footprint by forging new affiliate relationships with cable operators, Telco and satellite companies.  
 

Prior to joining Comcast, Hank served as executive vice president and general manager of Adlink, where he was instrumental in increasing revenue to $138 million. He led the development of Adlink’s sales & marketing, strategic alliances division and the Hispanic division which enabled advertisers to tap the households of the nation’s #1 Hispanic market.
 

Oster has more than 25 years of broadcast and cable experience, including his tenure as vice president of sales and programming for Johnson Broadcasting and vice president/director of sales for KHJ-TV (now KCAL) in Los Angeles.
 

He currently sits on the board of directors for National Cable Communications (NCC) and the Cable Advertising Bureau.
 

Steve Feingold
Senior Vice President of Operations and Strategic Planning

Steve Feingold has overseen the build-out of many cable interconnects since joining Comcast Spotlight in 2000.

As vice president of strategic planning, he is responsible for managing the digital simulcast transitions and working to set new operations standards across Comcast Spotlight’s footprint, including rolling out e-business, MIS and sales metrics deployment, and overseeing the long-term build out of the traffic and billing systems. Feingold is also responsible for spearheading the growth of involvement with Comcast’s regional sports investments and Spotlight’s sports initiatives.

Prior to his work at Comcast Spotlight, Feingold was a regional vice president with Continental Cablevision/Media One in New England for 11 years, where he developed the Greater Boston Interconnect.

Bill Haase
Senior Vice President, Finance & Administration

Bill Haase serves as Comcast Spotlight's Senior Vice President, Finance & Administration, where he oversees the finance, human resources, and legal functions. He manages all of the financial operations and reporting for the division as well as the administration of human resource practices for the company's approximately 3,400 employees.

Haase joined Comcast Spotlight in February 2002, serving in various roles for the company's finance organization. He played a critical role in the acquisition and integration processes for a range of businesses, including former Adelphia advertising sales operations, Vehix, Strata, Spot Buy Spot and others. Before joining Comcast Spotlight, Haase previously worked at Ernst & Young LLP in the audit function and later served three years as the Financial Reporting Manager at CDNOW.com, a publicly traded Internet retailer. Haase is a certified public accountant, and graduated from Michigan State University with a bachelor's degree in accounting and an MBA. He also serves as Treasurer of the Ronald A. Rehling Memorial Fund, a not-for-profit organization that supports leukemia research at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.