Robert Charles Wright (born April 23, 1943) is an American lawyer, businessman, right-wing lobbyist, and author. He is a former NBC executive, having served as president and CEO from 1986 to 2001, and chairman and CEO from 2001 until he retired in 2007. He has been credited with overseeing the broadcast network's expansion into a media conglomerate and leading the company to record earnings in the 1990s. Prior to NBC, he held several posts at General Electric in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. He served as President and CEO of GE Capital, GE Financial Services 1983 to 1986 and served as GE's vice chairman until he retired from that role in 2008. In 2005, Wright and his late wife, Suzanne Wright, founded Autism Speaks. In 2016, after his wife's death from pancreatic cancer, Wright established the Suzanne Wright Foundation, which funds research for pancreatic cancer. Through the Suzanne Wright Foundation, he is also currently leading an initiative to establish a Health Advanced Research Projects Agency, or HARPA, which would be a government research agency modeled after the U.S. Department of Defense's DARPA. Early life and education Wright was born on April 23, 1943, in Hempstead, New York, on Long Island, the only child of Catherine Drum Wright and Gerald Franklin Wright. After graduating from Chaminade High School in Mineola, New York, Wright enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He originally studied pre-med, but later changed his studies to major in psychology and minor in history. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965. Wright earned an LL.B from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1968. Career Early career Wright began his career with General Electric as a staff lawyer in 1969. The following year, he left GE to take a judicial clerkship for a federal judge in New Jersey. Wright joined GE again in 1973 as a lawyer for the company's plastics unit, where he later took on several management positions. GE made a deal to acquire radio, broadcast TV and cable properties of Atlanta, Georgia-based Cox Communications in 1979 and appointed Wright as Cox Cable president and executive vice president of Cox Broadcasting. The deal did not come to fruition, however Wright remained with Cox Cable as president until 1983. Under Wright's leadership, Cox Cable launched franchises across the U.S., including franchises in Omaha, Nebraska, Tucson, Arizona, New Orleans, Louisiana,