Steering Comcast's nonprofit side

Charisse Lillie says Philadelphia is "really on the precipice of greatness."

Mayor Nutter is the real deal.

New developments will transform the waterfront.

The expanding Convention Center will be an economic asset.

Yes, she has high hopes for Philadelphia and her employer, Comcast Corp. Lillie, who has had a distinguished career in city government and the Ballard Spahr law firm, was most recently the vice president for human resources at the cable giant. She reported to executive vice presidents David Cohen and David A. Scott. During her time in human resources, Comcast hired 25,000 employees. One of Lillie's goals was to improve the hiring of African Americans and other minorities.

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." . . .

We participated in job fairs. We also increased the number of some interns that we have, which also creates the pipeline of people that may be interested in coming to Comcast. We added a requirement of our contracts, with our outside recruiters, that they had to present diverse slates to us. So we did a number of things to really increase the numbers of diverse people that we were bringing into the organization.

Now, once you bring diverse people in the organization, the other thing that you have to do is really be focused on retention. We created the Emerging Leaders mentoring program, so that we had senior leaders in the cable division actually mentoring diverse folks that we had identified as potential leaders in the organization.

Q: What do you see as obstacles to minority hiring at Comcast or the communications industry?

A: One of the biggest obstacles is making sure you have a pipeline of people who are interested in telecommunications. And one of the reasons that we spend so much time in our internship programs is that people have to view telecom and cable as a viable career option. And so what we are doing is trying to expose these young people to a career. And creating the pipeline, I think, is a huge obstacle.

Q: So, why are you moving on to this new position?

A: Well, Brian (Roberts) and David (Cohen) presented me an exciting opportunity, to do something in my day job that I've always done in my life. I've been really active in the Philadelphia community; I've been very active in the national diversity movement in the legal profession; and I've been on a number of nonprofit boards in Philadelphia. So this is really an opportunity to take our company to a new level. So it really was a huge opportunity for me to . . . grow that community investment portfolio.

Q: Do you mean that you're going to be spending more money, or changing the image of Comcast?

A: We've got to educate both our external customers, as well as our internal customers, our employees, about what the Comcast Foundation is doing, and what this company is doing in terms of community investment. And if you look at the kind of contribution that we are making in United Way: Last year, 43 percent of our employees participated in United Way, and we contributed over $5.8 million nationally. We have scholarships for students all over the country. . . . Comcast Cares Day this year, we had over 50,000 volunteers giving 300,000 hours of community service. We're sort of a big secret.

Q: How can people tap into the Comcast Foundation? What are your criteria for funding a nonprofit? How do you apply?

A: Well, we have very specific focus areas. And our focus areas are youth leadership development, literacy and volunteerism. You can apply to the foundation online. There's some confusion in the Philadelphia area. We are in the Eastern Division and most of the giving that we do is in our division. We do some giving locally. But most of the application process, really, would go through the Eastern Division.

Age: 56

Hometown: Born in Houston; Resides in Philadelphia

Occupation: Runs community investments for Comcast Corp.

Education: Wesleyan University; Temple University (law); Yale University (master's).

Mentors: mother Vernell, an actress, theatrical producer and professor, and father Richard, a music teacher and jazz musician.

Secret ambition: Act in

a Broadway play.

What she looks out for: Being too judgemental.EndText