Rob Stoddard is Senior Vice President, Industry & Association Affairs, for NCTA – The Internet & Television Association, the principal trade association of the cable telecommunications industry. He oversees the association’s public affairs efforts, member relations, industry events, and other special projects. Prior to assuming the Industry & Association Affairs role, Stoddard led Communications & Public Affairs for NCTA for more than 15 years, with management of the Association’s media relations efforts, industry-wide public affairs programs, social responsibility initiatives, and promotion and publicity for NCTA events and activities.
Before joining NCTA in 2002, Stoddard served as the chief communications officer for a variety of major cable companies, including AT&T Broadband, MediaOne, and Continental Cablevision. Prior to that, he was vice president of Communications for the Cable Telecommunications Association (CATA), a Washington-based trade association for the owners and operators of cable television systems. He also has served as Washington, D.C., bureau chief for Cardiff Publishing Company; press secretary in Washington, D.C., for U. S. Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas; news and regional executive for United Press International in Boston; and news anchor and editor at several New England radio stations.
Stoddard serves on the Board of Directors of the National Press Club Journalism Institute, the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation, and the Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT) Washington, DC/Baltimore Chapter. He is also a member of the Cable Center Customer Care Committee and the National Press Foundation Annual Awards Dinner Committee. A former President of the Association of Cable Communicators, Stoddard also is former Chairman of the Board of Cable Positive, which for two decades was the cable industry’s foundation for AIDS awareness and education. He also formerly served on the national Board of Directors of the WICT Foundation.
Stoddard is a member of the Cable Television Pioneers Club and has been inducted into the PR News Hall of Fame, and the Hall of Fame of the Virginia Cable & Telecommunications Association. He is a recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the T. Howard Foundation for support of diversity; the "Friend of NAMIC Award" from the National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC); and the President’s Award from the Cable Television Public Affairs Association, for outstanding contributions to cable industry public affairs. Stoddard also has been recognized as a "DC Influencer" by PR Week Magazine.
A native of suburban Philadelphia, Stoddard is a graduate of The American University in Washington, D.C. He and his wife, Barbra – a life-long educator, researcher, and writer – reside in Bethesda, Maryland.