Rocco Commisso

“I'm the fulfillment of the American dream in all ways,” Rocco Commisso, founder and CEO of the cable company Mediacom, told “Forbes” in 2017.  As a teenager, Commisso says he worked 40-hour weeks to pay the tuition at a Catholic high school he attended in the Bronx. Before founding Mediacom, which is worth roughly $4.5 billion and employees 2,300 people, he worked as an executive for companies including Cablevision, the Royal Bank of Canada and Chase Manhattan Bank. He has endowed several scholarships at his high school alma mater, Mount Saint Michael Academy. The Rocco B. Commisso American Dream Scholarships is awarded to students, many from immigrant families, who have achieved academic and/or athletic success while displaying leadership and entrepreneurial qualities. He is an avid soccer fan, having played the game at Columbia University, and in 2017 he purchased the New York Cosmos. Updated July 2018