Luis Fernández is returning to NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises as chairman, the company said.

Fernández replaces Beau Ferrari, who will become a senior adviser to Cesar Conde, chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group and NBCU for strategic growth opportunities.

Fernández, who will report to Conde, had been president of Noticias Telemundo, Telemundo’s news division, before retiring in 2021.

“Throughout his extraordinary career, Luis has time and again shown visionary leadership, building and growing the most successful Spanish language media organizations in the United States and overseas,” Conde said. “At this moment in Telemundo’s storied history, we are so fortunate to have someone of Luis’s experience and stature to rejoin our team and excited about what the future holds for Telemundo and its audiences under his leadership.”

Ferrari was chairman of NBCU Telemundo Enterprises for three years.

“Under Beau’s successful leadership, Telemundo has remained a highly influential voice to Spanish-speaking audiences throughout the nation,” Conde, who also is a former Telemundo chairman, said. “He has led Telemundo during a transformative time. He and the team delivered innovative content across all platforms and record financial results. I look forward to continuing to work closely with him in his new role.”

NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises said Ray Warren, president of Telemundo Deportes, will retire early next year.

Warren has been with Comcast NBCUniversal for 15 years, leading the Spanish-language network’s sports division for the past six. His exit will come after the World Cup.

“Ray has been an invaluable member of our executive leadership team since joining Telemundo,” NBCU Telemundo chairman Beau Ferrari said. “His leadership at the 2018 Men’s World Cup in Russia and the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France has proven to be an unparalleled foundation for him and the Telemundo Deportes team to lead the most ambitious live multi-platform coverage of the global tournament since Qatar this fall.

“Ray has been a tireless advocate and contributor to Telemundo's position as a premier sports brand among U.S. Hispanics,“ Ferrari added. ”We are extremely grateful for his contributions, leadership and dedication to Telemundo Deportes’ world-class sports operation and for developing an experienced team that will continue to lead our efforts after the World Cup in Qatar.”

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Before Telemundo, Warren was executive VP and chief sales officer for NBC Sports Regional Networks. Prior to that, he was a top media-agency executive with Carat and OMD. He was also president of Raycom Sports and was a top sales executive at ABC, where he sold the first million-dollar minute in Super Bowl XIX in 1985. 

“From my first day in business in 1976, and for the last 15 years at Comcast, NBCUniversal and Telemundo, it has been a great journey and an incredible journey,” Warren said. “I am looking forward to a final chapter with my colleagues at Telemundo and my extremely talented team at Telemundo Deportes, the best I have ever worked with. We will bring the most authentic and innovative World Cup coverage to all football fans across the country. I am extremely grateful to my mentors, colleagues, friends, and family for their guidance and support along the way.” ■

NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises named Sandra Smester as executive VP, programming and content development, a new post at the company.

Smester was just recently executive VP and chief content officer of TV Azteca. In her new job, she will be responsible for primetime and daytime programming, content acquisitions, program scheduling and the cable network Universo. 

She will report to Ronald Day, president of entertainment and content strategy at NBCU Telemundo Enterprises.

“Sandra is a world-class media executive and a savvy programmer with a keen eye for great content, a long history of programming innovation, and a deep understanding of the U.S. Hispanic media space,” said Day. “She’s achieved impressive results at every stage of her career and is uniquely positioned to power Telemundo’s continued leadership, overseeing our best-in-class programming serving Latino audiences.”

Before TV Azteca, she worked at Univision, becoming executive VP of programming.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the Telemundo leadership team in this new role to support the continued growth of the business,” said Smester. “For years Telemundo has offered groundbreaking content, taking risks with innovative programming decisions and bringing a contemporary approach to our industry. I look forward to continuing in that tradition, deepening the connection with their existing audiences and creating new Telemundo superfans along the way.” ■

NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises said that Patsy Loris will become the new head of of Noticias Telemundo on Jan. 1, after Luis Fernández retires as president at the end of the year.

Loris will remain executive VP at Telemundo’s news division. She joined Noticas Telemundo in 2019 from Univision.

“Patsy is an experienced news leader and has made significant impact in our organization by strengthening Noticias Telemundo’s position as the leading Spanish-language news organization covering politics across all platforms,” said Beau Ferrari, chairman of NBCU Telemundo Enterprises. 

“With three decades of news leadership, she is a highly regarded executive who will continue to grow our news properties, strengthen our news gathering operations and develop our news talent with a clear focus on serving our community with the news and information they need and expect every day,” Ferrari said.

Loris led Noticias Telemundo’s coverage of the 2020 presidential election, including extensive coverage of the presidential inauguration and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Before joining Telemundo, Fernández was CEO of Real Madrid for the Asia Pacific Region, based in Beijing. Previously, he was president of entertainment and president of Univision Studios for Univision Communications.

“Luis has been the driving force behind the growth of Telemundo network’s news properties and Noticias Telemundo’s positioning as one of the most respected news brands in the industry,” Ferrari said. “He has been a transformative leader and a great partner in helping Telemundo fulfill its vision to be the choice and voice of Latinos around the world. Having built an extraordinary news team, he leaves Noticias Telemundo in the hands of one of the industry’s most talented news professionals.”

NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises expanded its revenue strategy and distribution business unit by hiring two new executives.

Ezequiel Fonseca Zas, previously with ViacomCBS International, was named senior VP of Revenue Strategy and Distribution. Malu Carmona-Botana, formerly with A+E Networks, was appointed VP of Content Monetization. Both are new positions.

Fonseca Zas will reporty to Peter Blacker, Telemund’s executive VP, Chief Commercial Officer and Head of DTC Licensing. Carmona-Botana will report to Fonseca Zas. Both new execs will be based in Miami.

“Ezequiel and Malu each bring a unique and deep set of media expertise in Spanish and English, which will help us expand the formats and multilingual experiences across AVOD, SVOD and DTC platforms that Telemundo has pioneered for over ten years in the US and across the globe,” said Blacker.

Comcast’s NBCUniversal unit named Beau Ferrari as chairman of NBCU Telemundo Enterprises, effective immediately.

Ferrari, who had been executive VP, succeeds Cesar Conde, who was recently named chairman, NBCU News Group. 

He will report to Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCU Television and Streaming.

“Beau is a strong leader with extraordinary business acumen and deep media experience across all media platforms and the Hispanic market. During his three years with the company, he has made a tremendous impact as Telemundo became one of NBCUniversal’s fastest-growing businesses,” said Lazarus. He added, “Beau is ideally suited to seamlessly take over the reins of Telemundo and build on its phenomenal success.”

Before joining NBCU, Ferrari worked at Univision, Telemundo’s rival in Spanish-language television.

“It’s an incredible honor to lead the talented team at Telemundo Enterprises, particularly at a time when there is so much momentum in this business,” said Ferrari. “I am excited for the opportunity to take the company to the next level and guide Telemundo’s continued growth.” 

Mónica Gil has several important jobs at NBCUniversal’s Telemundo Enterprises. Not only is she chief marketing officer. She also oversees corporate affairs, social responsibility programs and government relations for the Spanish-language programmer.

Besides that, she is a key adviser to chairman Cesar Conde and was part of the management team that led the network’s move in 2018 into the new Telemundo Center in Miami, Florida, the state-of-the-art production center and headquarters called the “30 Rock of the South.”

She led branding and launch efforts for Telemundo programming that have made the network No. 1 in weekday primetime among U.S. Spanish-language networks for three consecutive seasons — a point of pride for the former Nielsen executive who joined Telemundo in 2017.

Added to all of that, the Southern California native oversees human resources for the 1,500-employee organization. It’s in that role that she made what she considers one of her most important contributions to Telemundo: the Mujeres Imparables (Unstoppable Women) program now celebrating a one-year anniversary. The company-wide initiative is “dedicated to celebrating the achievements of women in all aspects of life and championing their advancement at every level of business,” Telemundo noted.

Mentorship Moves

“When I stepped into the human resource role, I realized that a lot of women specifically were asking for ways to either [obtain] a mentorship from me or asking to set a conversation about my career, or they wanted to talk about how they can grow,” Gil said in a recent interview.

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“Many times they feel stuck in their job and they don’t know how to get out. So I like to tell them, ‘Let’s get you unstuck.’ And sometimes just because you're stuck now doesn't mean it's forever. Or sometimes maybe because you get told ‘no,’ it just means ‘not yet.’ ”

Conde pointed to Unstoppable Women as one of Gil’s signature accomplishments and said it epitomized her desire to empower the next generation of Latina women and to make Telemundo stronger.

She has “an incredible eye for talent,” Conde said. “She has mentored women and men throughout her career. And I think helping identify the high-potential next generation of talent and nurturing them has been one of the biggest unwritten or unspoken contributions that she has made.”

Conde said Gil brought a unique background of marketplace data and “where the future of the demographics of the industry was going,” so when Telemundo was looking to fill the newly created executive VP role three years ago, “in my mind there was no one who understood that dynamic better than Mónica.”

At Nielsen, Gil was senior VP and general manager of multicultural, growth and strategy, advising blue-chip clients (including packaged goods and media firms) and created, developed and authored such insight reports as Latina Power Shift, about the growing influence of Hispanic women in the U.S. marketplace.

“I'm very proud of the consumer reports that we did at Nielsen, because I think that those reports have truly helped shape and inform companies about markets that were sometimes an afterthought,” Gil said when asked to cite her top career accomplishments. (The others were Unstoppable Women and Telemundo’s successful, first-ever exclusive Spanish-language broadcast of the FIFA World Cup, in Russia in 2018.)

Susan Whiting, as vice chair of Nielsen until retiring from there in 2013, worked closely with Gil for nine years.

“When you meet Mónica, you are immediately impressed by her energy and her knowledge and her intelligence in approaching a situation,” Whiting said. “The more you get to know her, you learn about how she solves problems, how she connects people, how she works for improving an organization and its positioning. Also I think a big part of the work she’s done and her mission is to make sure that we see diversity and its opportunity in everything we do.

“She’s incredibly funny, she’s a great friend, she’s a very good mentor and she was really really good at her job at Nielsen,” Whiting said.

Gil was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. She is the youngest of 12 children in the family, and speaks with pride about her 29 nieces and nephews. “We grew up with a father who was a gardener, a mom who was a homemaker, who wanted us to work hard or work diligently and sign our name proudly. So that's always been my motto in life.”

Political Roots

Before joining Nielsen, Gil was in politics. She was deputy press secretary for California House speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and helped him win election as mayor of Los Angeles in 2005. Earlier, she had worked in public affairs for Telemundo stations in L.A. Those jobs taught her a lot about media, she said. “Politics gave me the opportunity to see how to shape a narrative of a story and how to pick the right stories to tell.”

Having been in positions to observe and nurture growing respect for Hispanics as consumers and as individuals, she says they are in a good place now.

“I like to say there’s no better time to be Hispanic than now,” she said. “And the reason I believe that is, with 60 million Latinos in this country, Latinos are now in a position where it's not only about the population size, but any company that wants to grow I think really has to put Latinos at the forefront of the dialogue. … I think it’s an amazing moment to be Latino in this country now.”

Career Highlights: Transformed Telemundo’s marketing organization and helped lead the rise to becoming the No. 1 U.S. Spanish-language programmer (weekday prime) for three consecutive seasons.

Helped accelerate growth opportunities for Nielsen clients as senior VP and general manager of multicultural growth and strategy, authoring studies including Latina Power Shift.

Was a senior member of Antonio Villaraigosa’s successful election campaign for mayor of Los Angeles in 2005.

Quotable: “I love being a CMO. I love the power of our audience, the beauty, the diversity of our audience. That is truly reflective of the American dream.”

The international syndication and distribution arm of broadcaster Telemundo and cable network NBC Universo is getting its own production house.

With an announcement made in Cannes, France, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises confirmed the creation of Telemundo International Studios, or “TIS.” TIS will be an internationally focused production unit, exclusively focused on creating short-form scripted formats designed to serve both emerging platforms and the lucrative worldwide marketplace.

"Telemundo International Studios will tap into an international growth opportunity at a time when Telemundo is delivering unprecedented ratings performance,” César Conde, chairman of NBCUniversal International Group and NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, said.  “With this new production unit, we will continue to innovate and raise the bar in original Spanish-language content production in the U.S. and abroad.”

Telemundo International president Marcos Santana has been selected to oversee TIS. Santana collaborated in the creation of Telemundo Studios and has been part of its development committee since its inception. 

“The launch of Telemundo International Studios is a representation of the growth of our division, which further develops the expansion of our offer, increasing our catalog and distribution opportunities for markets and platforms that demand programming for a well-defined audience with established consumption habits,” Santana said. “I am excited and feel privileged to work on this new project, from its conception, with César Conde and the support of Comcast NBCUniversal.”

TIS will be headquartered in Miami. Its development committee includes Telemundo president Luis Silberwasser, senior vice president of development Perla Farias, and NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises Digital Media head Peter Blacker.

Telemundo Internacional is distributed to countries across Latin America, while a Telemundo-branded pay TV in Africa offers content dubbed into English for the South Africa market and into Portuguese for Angola and Mozambique.