Profile
The Great Communicator
Kellye Whitney, 05-10-2009
For Cesar Conde, it’s all about streamlined growth, or as he puts it, finding new opportunities and efficiencies. At 35, Conde is executive vice president and chief strategy officer for Univision Communications, the largest Spanish language media company in the United States and one of the largest integrated media companies in the world.
“We’re constantly making sure that we find growth opportunities across all of our different platforms, and we want to make sure we find all the different efficiencies that we have from a profitability perspective within all those different platforms,” Conde explained.
“We work very closely with our CEO and the other division heads to do that. We are very proactive, but it’s a wide open market, so we want to be sure we stay aggressive but also efficient.”
Conde has been at Univision for more than five years. He came into the organization as vice president of business development for Univision Network, the TV broadcast network, and then led corporate development for all of the company’s TV properties. Next, he ran the cable arm, the Galavision Network.
When Univision was purchased by a consortium of private equity firms, Conde was asked to act as special assistant and chief of staff to the CEO. During that period he was also president of Univision’s Interactive division.
“I’ve had a lot of positions in a relatively short amount of time, and it was great training and experience for this chief strategy officer position because understanding the different platforms that we work in, understanding our different businesses and the different people that work at our company really allows us to bring it all together and get behind new initiatives, leveraging all of those different platforms and people.”
Conde cites two primary challenges. First, he said because Univision is in the high-growth Latino marketplace, it’s important to prioritize the biggest and best opportunities in which to invest the company’s limited resources. His second challenge is helping educate corporate America about the U.S. Latino market.
“Everyone understands it’s incredibly big and fast-growing, but once you get past that, a lot of companies still do not have a deep understanding of how that market and how our business can help them move the needle,” he explained.
“Our biggest challenge is helping people understand how they can leverage our business to help their businesses grow. The good news is it works. All of the people we have working with us are big repeat customers.”
Conde said it’s likely corporate America isn’t more aware of what the Hispanic market can do for business because the market itself is diverse. Further, the primary language used to speak to the market is Spanish, which creates an additional hurdle for many.
“One of the first questions we ask companies is do they have a minority or Hispanic on their board of directors? Do they have an advisory board that advises them on the Hispanic or minority markets? Do they have diversity initiatives in their corporation to ensure they have a diverse employee base?
“A company can recognize and want to be in the Hispanic marketplace, but if they don’t have a diverse employee base to help them understand and take advantage of that opportunity, they’re probably not going to be able to maximize it,” Conde explained.
Conde counts his ability to help break down communication silos within Univision as one of his biggest mandates and a source of pride. He said he is also proud of the work Univision does to empower the Hispanic community on issues such as education, health care, citizenship and politics.
“For example, late in 2007 we helped put together, and eventually hosted, the first ever presidential debates in Spanish language for both the Republican and the Democratic parties,” he said. “To be part of an effort to ensure that our country’s political leaders are speaking directly to the Hispanic segment about issues that matter to them is something we feel is part of our mission.”
Many organizations have a specific philosophy or goal to which diversity and inclusion efforts are aimed. Conde said Univision sets diversity as its core business strategy, period, and it has the numbers to back this claim. More than 80 percent of its workforce is Hispanic, and more than 30 percent of its senior managers are female.
“That diversity drives innovation for our company,” he explained. “Ensuring that our workforce has Hispanics, females, all types of ethnicities, Spanish speakers, English speakers and the like, is pivotal, and frankly a requirement, for us to continue to deliver the high-end products and services that we do to our viewers, listeners, online users and certainly our partners.”
Conde is proud of his company and the work it does to foster communication and diversity efforts, but before he landed at Univision, his career took several interesting turns.
Originally from Miami, Fla., Conde is of Cuban and Peruvian descent. He attended Harvard University for his undergraduate studies and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania for his MBA. He started out as an investment banker in mergers and acquisitions at Salomon Smith Barney in New York. Then, during the Internet craze of the 1990s, he and a group of peers started StarMedia Network, the first Internet company focused on Spanish and Portuguese speakers globally. The company eventually went public and was sold in pieces to other interactive companies.
In 2002, Conde went to work for the federal government as one of 12 in the White House Fellows program; he served as special assistant to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.
“The experience in the Internet was my entry point into media,” he said. “I have always been interested in working in an industry that had the ability to have mass impact on communities or populations. At the time, the very new Internet market had that capacity. The company was sold, and I was nominated and selected for the White House Fellows program. I thought it was a great opportunity to go into another arena where one can have mass impact. In public service at that level, any small contribution can impact millions of people.
“The second thing that attracted me is I think it’s important for all leaders at some point in their career to understand how our government works. Ensuring the public and private sectors work in tandem as much as possible to help our country is pivotal. By having more corporate leaders understand how government works and that language they speak, we can find new opportunities and more efficiencies. In this day and age I think that is more true than probably it ever has been true, or any of us could have predicted it would be five or 10 years ago.”
As special assistant to Colin Powell, Conde briefed Powell and his staff on relevant issues that came through the State Department each day. He also traveled with Powell and, because of his media experience, worked on public diplomacy and helped with outreach and to communicate United States objectives to foreign entities and governments.
“[Powell] is one of those few individuals that you have the highest expectations of, and he surpassed mine,” Conde said. “It was an incredible opportunity to see someone who was essentially the CEO of a global corporation. I learned a tremendous amount from him, his strategy and how he drove that strategy and brought people on-board to his vision. I was able to learn how government works from one of the best public servants in our time. But at the same time I was able to learn global leadership and management skills from one of the best.”
