Title Vice President, Diversity & Inclusion Company Comcast Bio Maria G. Arias is the Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion for Comcast Corporation. She was appointed to this role in 2011, after the close of the company’s acquisition of NBCUniversal, and was charged with developing a new, enterprise-wide diversity and inclusion strategy and running a newly created corporate office of diversity and inclusion. Today, Ms. Arias is one of the company’s highest ranking Latina leaders and she oversees the implementation of diversity and inclusion initiatives across corporate governance, workforce, supplier diversity, programming, and community investment. Ms. Arias also directs and manages two diversity councils, Comcast’s Executive Internal Diversity Council and the award-winning Comcast NBCUniversal External Joint Diversity Advisory Council, comprised of over 40 national civil rights, community and business leaders from various disciplines. Under her leadership, Ms. Arias has transformed Comcast NBCUniversal’s diversity efforts into an award-winning blueprint that has helped garner the company a top 30 position on DiversityInc., and the highest diversity and inclusion accolades from the Human Rights Campaign, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, National Council of La Raza, Black Enterprise Magazine, LATINA Style Magazine, and the American Association of People with Disabilities. Prior to her current role, Ms. Arias served as Vice President of Operations for Comcast Cable’s Southern Colorado systems, where she led technical operations and alternative sales channels. Prior to that, she was the Vice President of Operations for Comcast’s West Division, Interim Vice President of Technical Operations for the West Division, and Interim General Manager for Comcast’s Colorado Mountain Area and Tucson, Arizona cable systems. Before joining Comcast in 2007, Ms. Arias worked in numerous legal and government affairs roles for AT&T Corporation, AT&T Broadband, and Adelphia Communications. Ms. Arias was also an income partner with national law firm McDermott, Will & Emery, in Chicago, IL, where she specialized in commercial litigation. For her industry-acclaimed work in diversity, Ms. Arias has been named among CableFax Magazine’s Most Influential Minorities in Cable (2015 and 2014) and Most Powerful Women in Cable (2015), and she is also a frequent guest speaker at national diversity events. In addition to her awards and speaking engagements, Ms. Arias currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Philadelphia Freedom Valley YMCA and Congreso de Latinos Unidos, and is an active member of Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT) and the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC). She previously served on the Board of Solera National Bank and various non-profit boards in Colorado, including the Denver Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Cherry Creek Schools Foundation, and the Junior Achievement Board of Southern Colorado. She holds a Juris Doctor from Northwestern University School of Law. Ms. Arias lives in Philadelphia and is married to Thomas C. Pelto. Together they have five children.