César Conde: Univision’s big bet

César Conde, the newly appointed president of media giant, Univision, is only 35. But a quick look at his resume and it’s easy to see why he was picked to head the nation’s most-watched Spanish language television network.

Conde, who will replace longtime president Ray Rodriguez, has served most recently as the company’s chief strategy officer. In that position he has overseen the network’s drive to extend its mandate beyond news and entertainment to a civic leadership role in the Hispanic community. The buzzword Univision executives like to use is Hispanic “empowerment.” It’s been a highly successful form of corporate re-branding for Univision that has seen it take an ever more active role in promoting U.S. citizenship applications, voter registration drives and get-out-the vote efforts, as well as intense news coverage of the U.S. immigration debate.

While his new responsibilities will now include direct oversight of programming, including plans to develop more original shows, Conde owes his meteoric rise to a keen sense of Univision’s corporate citizen identity, which lies at the roots of the network’s origin in 1986, and its predecessor, Spanish International Network (SIN).

“He gets that part of the job very well,” says Alfredo Balsera, head of Balsera Communications Group, a leading Hispanic public affairs firm in Miami. “Having him at the helm of Univision is going to be invaluable because Hispanic empowerment is something he cares about.”

Conde also brings to Univision a rare blend of Hispanic cultural background with an all-American upbringing, which analysts say is key to the network’s success. “He is fully bi-cultural,” says Sergio Bendixen, president of Bendixen and Associates, the Miami-based public opinion research firm. “This guy is a mix of Hispanic and American culture. He understands Latin America and the different way many of the people who come here look at life, and he understands the American way.”

It’s right there in his unusual ethnic background. His Peruvian-born father is a top cardiologist at Mount Sinai hospital on Miami Beach. His Cuban-American mother went back to school after the boys left home, earning a Phd at the University of Miami in international relations.

The eldest of three brothers, Conde moved to Miami at a year old and graduated from Belen Jesuit Preparatory, a Cuban-American stable of future young professionals. “I consider myself a native Miamian,” he says. “From a very young age my parents did a good job of instilling in my brothers and me a sense of real pride in our heritage and our culture, and we have a very good appreciation of the immigrant experience.”

Conde’s younger brothers are also both highly successful professionals. Jorge, 32, is CEO of a leading Boston biotech firm, Knome, offering personal genome sequencing and analysis. Enrique, 30, is a corporate attorney with Greenberg Traurig. After studying at Harvard, Conde got his MBA at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Conde started out as an investment banker in the mergers and acquisitions group at Salomon Smith Barney. But he realized it wasn’t for him. “I knew I didn’t want to be in the service industry, per se. I wanted to focus on building a company, building a product,” he says.

He got his baptism in “new media” as vice president for business development at StarMedia Network, the first internet company to focus on Spanish and Portuguese-speaking audiences.

In 2002 he was nominated to serve as a White House Fellow, appointed by President George W. Bush. “I am a huge believer in public service and I just thought it was the perfect time in my career to take the time to understand how government works, ideally in the hope of being able to bridge the public and private sectors in more effective ways.”

He served his fellowship as a special assistant to Secretary of State Colin Powell. When he joined, the country was in the build-up for the invasion of Iraq. “It was a wonderful experience to see on the inside how government and policy gets made,” he said. He came to admire Powell’s managerial leadership style with daily 8 a.m. team meetings. He hit it off with Powell, traveling with him to South America, as well being sent on a two-week mission to Afghanistan.

A loyal team player himself, Conde isn’t one to spill the beans on that tense period in the Bush administration and the divisions in the White House. While politically conservative, he doesn’t wear his politics on his sleeve. He is not associated with Cuban-American politics, and instead serves on the board of the Cuban American National Council (CNC), a non-profit organization providing human services to persons in need from all racial and ethnic groups. Together with his brothers he co-founded the Futuro Program, a non-profit organization that provides role models and educational workshops to Hispanic high school students.

After his stint with Powell, Conde joined Univision in late 2003, saying it allowed him to combine his interest in the media business, and his passion for the Hispanic community and the political policy issues issues that affect it. “I was trying to find a company that would mesh those two things,” he says. “I really felt a particular bond with the potential of what Univision could be.”

At Univision he has worked on corporate development, sales and its interactive services, as well as heading one of its sister stations, cable channel Galavisión, where he was responsible for all of its functions, including programming, promotions, operations, talent relations and original productions. After Univision was bought in 2007 by a private equity group led by billionaire media investor Haim Saban, Conde was appointed as special assistant to the new CEO, Joe Uva. Conde will continue to report to Uva when he assumes his new role on October 1, overseeing Univision as well as Galavisión and the over-the-air TeleFutura network.

Current Univision president Ray Rodriguez, 58, will retire from the company at the end of the year after nearly 20 years at Univision.

“I have worked very closely with Cesar over the last several months and he has consistently shown that he is a creative thinker and a motivational leader with keen strategic insights,” says Uva. “His significant tenure with Univision, deep experience across several divisions of the Company and vast industry knowledge give him a unique ability to help us further grow and define Univision’s role within the rapidly evolving U.S. media industry,” Uva adds. “Cesar is the ideal person for this position, and I look forward to continuing to work with him to drive the company’s growth and development.”

Conde has a reputation for being mature beyond his years, and he comes across as relaxed yet highly focused and analytical during a 90-minute interview in Miami’s Brickell banking district, where he lives.

He’s as happy talking about his personal life as he is about Univision. He has a lot going on right now, with his new job as well his engagement to Peruvian-born Pamela Silva, an Emmy-award-winning morning news anchor at Univision.

The couple plan to marry early next year. “He wears his youth well,” says Pedro de Cordoba, chief strategy officer at Eventus, a Miami-based sports and entertainment firm that does business with Univision. “He’s very comfortable in his skin.”

Young, talented, and successful he may be, but it doesn’t seem to have gone to his head. “His key to success is that he’s very approachable,” says longtime friend and former colleague at Univision, Jorge Plasencia, CEO of República, a Miami-based public relations firm. “He doesn’t have an ego and he never puts himself first. He is someone that has an amazing way of mixing the academic background that he has with the nuts and bolts, get your hands dirty, approach to business,” says Plasencia.

When the conversation turns to business it’s easy to see how he earned his reputation for analytical smarts.As the No. 1 Spanish language network with an 80-plus percent market share, Conde says Univision is “more than a media company, it’s a social, cultural, political force.”

Given the enormous socio-economic challenges issues facing Hispanics, whether it be immigration, housing, education, or unemployment, Conde says Univision serves as “a lifeline to the Hispanic community in this country.”