Mr. Wright joined the National Broadcasting Company as president and chief executive officer on September 1, 1986, and became chairman and chief executive officer on June 4, 2001. Mr. Wright has had one of the longest and most successful tenures of any network chief executive. Under his leadership, NBC's earnings have increased nearly 300 percent while revenue has more than doubled. He is also vice chairman of the board, executive officer and a member of the Corporate Executive Office of the General Electric Company.

He has transformed NBC into a global, multimedia company by extending into cable, international and new-media markets. At the same time, he has maintained NBC's commitment to its core broadcasting business by expanding its ownership to 13 broadcast stations across the country.

Today, NBC is the only television network to regularly turn a profit and is the only network to hold the lead among key demographic groups in every significant daypart: morning news, daytime, primetime, evening news, late-night and Sunday morning. With a stable of popular comedies and dramas such as The West Wing, Law & Order, ER, Friends and Frasier, along with hit game show The Weakest Link, NBC is the top network for accumulating high-income viewers in the demographic categories most important to advertisers. Among upscale audiences, NBC is No. 1 in both the 18-49 and 25-54 demographic groups.

In cable, NBC owns CNBC, which during Mr. Wright's tenure has become the global leader in business news, providing real-time financial-market information to more than 77 million households in the United States and 166 million homes worldwide. In addition, just five years after its launch, MSNBC, NBC's joint venture with Microsoft, reaches 64 million U.S. cable subscribers.

Including its equity stakes in the A&E Network, the History Channel, ValueVision's home shopping network and Cablevision's Rainbow Media Holdings Inc., NBC has partial ownership of more than a dozen cable networks. Internationally, NBC has distribution, programming and new-media partnerships with companies such as Dow Jones and Deutsche Fernsehnachrichten Agentur. NBC programming can now be seen in nearly 100 countries on six continents.

NBC is also a leader in interactive and new-media businesses. MSNBC.com, operated in conjunction with Microsoft, is the preeminent news service on the Internet, while CNBC.com provides the best of CNBC on the Web. In addition, NBC holds an equity stake in over 50 new-media companies.

Prior to his association with NBC, Mr. Wright served as president of General Electric Financial Services and, before that, as president of Cox Cable Communications. He has had a diversified career in general management, marketing and broadcasting. Much of it has been with General Electric, NBC's parent company.

Mr. Wright has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Steven J. Ross Humanitarian of the Year award from the UJA-Federation of New York and the Gold Medal Award from the International Radio & Television Society Foundation. He has also been inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame. Mr. Wright is on the boards of trustees of the American Film Institute and the Museum of Television and Radio, and serves on the board of directors of the Motion Picture and Television Fund Corporation and the Cancer Research Fund of the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Foundation. He is an honorary trustee of the Foundation of American Women in Radio and Television. In addition, he is on the board of governors of New York Presbyterian Hospital and is a member of the Society of New York Hospital Inc. He is also a trustee of the College of the Holy Cross.

Mr. Wright is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross and the University of Virginia School of Law, where he received his LLB degree. He and his wife, Suzanne, live in Connecticut and have three grown children.