Rocco Commisso, the founding father of Mediacom and proprietor of Italian soccer membership ACF Fiorentina, has died. He was 76.
Each Mediacom and ACF Fiorentina confirmed the information in separate statements Friday, writing that the businessman handed after “a protracted interval of medical remedy.” Nonetheless, no particular reason for dying was shared.
Survived by his spouse, Catherine, youngsters Giuseppe and Marisa, and sisters Italia and Raffaelina, Commisso was remembered for his longstanding dedication to household, soccer and enterprise.
“For his household, he was an instance and a guiding mild, a loyal and devoted man who, alongside his spouse Catherine, reached the milestone of fifty years of marriage, and who was a strict but loving father to his youngsters, simply as his character was: light and decided,” ACF Fiorentina wrote of their assertion.
The membership continued: “His love for Fiorentina was the best reward he gave himself, spending unforgettable days with the girls and boys of the youth groups, all the time providing a caring gesture and a smile to everybody. Tireless, he labored till his closing days, dedicating himself to his firms, Mediacom and Fiorentina, and to their future.”
Per the membership, which Commisso took over in 2019, “the Rocco B. Commisso Viola Park, the house of Fiorentina, will stay endlessly bearing his title—an indelible image of his affection and his need to look towards the way forward for younger individuals.”
Earlier than signing off the assertion, the membership shared that the Commisso household wished “to thank all those that stood by him throughout these delicate moments and is definite that the reminiscence of Rocco will stay endlessly within the hearts of the many individuals who beloved him and who shared each troublesome and exquisite moments with him.”
Mediacom expanded on Commisso’s legacy with a press release of their very own, praising the late businessman as “some of the profitable Italian immigrant entrepreneurs in our nation’s historical past.”
“A member of the celebrated Forbes 400, his illustrious profession with the cable tv business spans almost 50 years,” the corporate added, earlier than highlighting how Commisso based the corporate within the ’90s so as “to accumulate and reinvigorate cable methods within the nation’s underserved smaller communities.”
Commisso was born in Calabria, Italy in 1949, however later immigrated to the U.S. on the age of 12. After graduating from Mount Saint Michael Academy within the Bronx in 1967, he attended Columbia College, the place he earned each a BS diploma in industrial engineering and an MBA diploma from the Graduate Enterprise Faculty.
He labored at a variety of monetary establishments, together with Chase Manhattan Financial institution (now J.P. Morgan Chase) and Royal Financial institution of Canada. Over the course of almost a decade, Commisso labored as govt vp, chief monetary officer and director of Cablevision Industries Company.
In 1995, he based Mediacom and led the corporate to change into the fifth largest cable tv supplier. He additionally served on the boards of the Nationwide Cable & Telecommunications Affiliation, C-SPAN, CableLabs, Cyndx LLC and the Nationwide Italian American Basis.
