Cox Enterprises Leadership Q & A

Whether the economy is strong or weak, Cox's strategy of maintaining market leadership serves us well. In a down economy, this may not translate as quickly into increased revenues as it does when the economy is growing. But market leadership is a key measure of how well we're serving our customers and communities, and those are two of the highest priorities for Cox.

Jimmy Hayes — President and Chief Executive Officer, Cox Enterprises

In addition to our focus on operational excellence and the fact that we have great leaders running our businesses, we have always been a disciplined and fiscally conservative company. As a result, Cox enjoys a strong balance sheet, which is a significant help to us when we experience a downturn. Our businesses also are diversified, and many have multiple revenue streams. Most of our businesses generate strong cash flows and are expected to grow over time. These fundamentals ensure that we have the capital necessary to invest in opportunities that will yield future growth.

John Dyer — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Cox Enterprises

We work hard to ensure that our workplaces embrace the diversity of perspectives our employees bring to work each day and that each employee feels valued. Our employees know they can shape their own careers because they have opportunities for advancement here, and that's apparent as you look at how many employees have been with the company literally for decades.

Marybeth Leamer — Senior Vice President, Human Resources and Administration, Cox Enterprises

Our employees provide excellent service to our customers. It's only fitting, then, that we would make our employees' daily work experience just as rewarding. What sets us apart is what I call "the essence of Cox” — a special camaraderie and atmosphere of mutual respect, a valuing of diversity, an embracing of new ideas and a genuine concern for one another as people.

Deborah Thomas — Vice President, Human Resources, Cox Media Group

When you've been in business for 110 years, you've seen just about every type of economy. We know from managing through previous down cycles that it is shortsighted to make decisions based solely on current conditions. Instead, we base our decisions on long-term, strategic considerations, and this focus is one of the key reasons that Cox has been growing for more than a century — a claim that not many companies can make these days. Change is nothing to fear. Cox's history is rich with examples of embracing the new and anticipating what's coming.

Jim Kennedy — Chairman, Cox Enterprises

The most significant change has been the increased activity of buying and selling taking place online. We experienced 36 percent growth in our online transactions last year, and expect them to increase again in 2009. Sellers are looking to improve their cash positions by selling cars as quickly as possible, while trying to ensure there is still competitive bidding for their product. Buyers want to reduce capital tied up in speculative inventory on their lots in favor of having access to virtual inventory that meets customer needs in real time. Manheim.com offers buyers and sellers the venue to accomplish these objectives.

Dean Eisner — President, Manheim

The creation of Cox Media Group affords us wonderful opportunities to work together, especially in the digital world. We have the assets to aggregate large audiences and to target the sale of those audiences across our businesses. This year will mark a new era of sharing, of collaboration and of capitalizing on opportunities across our media businesses

Sandy Schwartz — President, Cox Media Group

Our first focus is to maintain our relationship with our viewers and communities through extensive research that helps us keep pace with changing viewer preferences and media habits. Our TV stations also have three platforms — HD television, Web sites and the emerging mobile DTV — to serve our audiences and to convey our advertisers' messages.

Bruce Baker — Executive Vice President, Cox Television

Readers' preferences continue to change, and Cox, like other newspaper companies, has certainly felt the effects of this shift. We've had to adapt, sometimes in challenging ways. Today, this means producing not only our traditional newspaper print product, but also providing other distribution platforms. Our focus is on being our audience's most trusted local news brands, regardless of the distribution method.

Doug Franklin — Executive Vice President, Cox Newspapers

Radio reaches more than 93 percent of Americans — 234 million people — on a weekly basis. Few other media can make that claim. Our audience is growing, even in the face of fragmentation. We consistently deliver targeted demographics to advertisers and help them grow their businesses in a cost-effective way that is superior to other media.

Bob Neil — President and Chief Executive Officer, Cox Radio

Our company values provide a great blueprint to guide our decision-making, regardless of what's happening in the marketplace. Serving our customers and communities well is essential. By offering better customer experiences than our competitors, we help secure our industry leadership position. Staying there also requires innovation — a Cox tradition that continues today as we move into wireless communications and online auto auctions, to name just two examples.

Jimmy Hayes — President and Chief Executive Officer, Cox Enterprises

We are reinventing our businesses to support our customers' needs and help them succeed. This singular focus is driving innovation and updated business models at all Cox companies like never before. Now, more than ever, it is so important to operate as efficiently as possible, while partnering with customers to ensure we are delivering solid results.

Chip Perry — President and Chief Executive Officer, AutoTrader.com

Through the power of participation, AutoTrader.com employees make the greatest impact by giving their time and sharing their talents with the communities where we live and work. We are proud to encourage employee volunteerism and community partnerships, and recognize the value this brings our company and our community. Because of this community commitment, we are known not only for what we do as a business, but also for who we are as a company.

Michele Blondheim — Manager, Community Relations, AutoTrader.com

Cox has a tradition of being a great corporate citizen. To continue this legacy, we must be committed to energy conservation and environmental stewardship. With 77,000 employees and their families, we have a great opportunity to really make a difference and to be a model for others. If we all do a little, it adds up to something big.

Jim Kennedy — Chairman, Cox Enterprises

We are bringing mobile services to the market in 2009. More than two-thirds of our customers take a bundle of services from Cox, and adding wireless to the mix of high-speed Internet, telephone and video will provide our customers with the full complement of communications products.

Pat Esser — President, Cox Communications

Cox Cross Media has grown to more than 850 local media Web sites — including TV, radio and newspaper — to offer the largest footprint of local media sites in the industry. We combine leading-edge technology, quality salespeople and superior content to give advertisers an efficient way to reach local media sites while providing local sites the benefit of national advertising customers.

Steve Shaw — Senior Vice President, Cox Cross Media

Customer service is the linchpin of Adify's culture and success thus far. Our high-touch service inspires our customers to communicate their experience to the market. This includes serving as references for prospective customers. The positive word-of-mouth earned by our team is a true competitive advantage.

Max Ochoa — General Counsel and Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Adify Corp.

Customer service used to be something we were simply proud of; today it is absolutely critical to our survival. Few industries are changing more than newspapers. What used to be all print content must now be delivered on computers, PDAs, cell phones and all of the many applications available on each. The changes are challenging to our traditional business model, but our advertisers are depending on us to figure it out and to keep them connected with the market.

Alex Taylor — Publisher, The Palm Beach Post

Cox's vision is to be the most trusted provider of entertainment and communication services in America. Our dedicated employees have embraced this vision and differentiate Cox by providing the best customer experience. Their efforts have been recognized with multiple J.D. Power awards — three awards in 2008 alone. We're the only cable company to be recognized by J.D. Power with top customer satisfaction honors across all of our product lines.

Scott Wise — Vice President, Customer Care, Cox Communications