Fireside Chat with NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprise Chairman, Cesar Conde

Well, I'd say a couple of things. First, let me tell you, I am so happy to be back at this conference, at this event. I was talking to Eleuthera setter, who's on our team earlier today, and I said, 'Gosh, remind me again when I did this program, like five, six years ago?' He's like, '13 years ago.' So you know, I think we're where time is flying and we're all getting a little older, but I'm just so excited. So thank you for the invitation to be back. And you know, that program was such a great experience for me, and I'm happy to talk about it later on if that's of interest. You know, I was fortunate to do this program, the White House Fellows program. For those of you that don't know about it, please take note, particularly some of the young folks and the young corporate civic— this is, I think, one of the least known but I think best leadership training programs in the country. It's a program that selects 10 to 15 young professionals from different walks of life every year. It's bipartisan, it's nonpartisan, to work as one of the special assistants to one of the cabinet secretaries. And I had the privilege, when I was selected, to be appointed to work for then Secretary of State Colin Powell. For me, more than anything, it was really two great things. One was it was a great opportunity to work for someone who I think is one of the great leaders— business, private sector, public sector— of our generation, and see General Powell sort of upfront, his values, his character, and his management style. So that was great. I think the second thing that was great for me is I'm a private sector person, always have been, and for me to get some exposure as to how the private sector and how government work together was a big insight. And so it was a great opportunity. It also taught me that, particularly when you're earlier on in your career, it's important to invest in yourself. A lot of people told me when I decided to leave corporate America to do the fellowship, they said, 'Gosh, you know, you're taking yourself out of the rat race. That's not really a smart thing to do.' And it sometimes took me a little bit to explain to people why I did it, but in retrospect, it's probably the best investment of a year of time that I did in myself. When you think of your career not as a short-term but you think of it over as a marathon, so I encourage people early on in their career to make sure you invest in yourself and continue stretching yourself, because those are good experiences.

Oh well, I can tell they gave you the good seats. You know, for me, it was great. It's hard to believe that it was 12, 13 years ago, and you were telling me today it was the first class. This is the first time or the first class. So look, it was great for me. I think what I took away from it was a few things. One is this concept of investing in oneself and making sure you're exposing yourself to different management lessons and perspectives and the like. I think that was important. That experience gave me that. I think the second thing is networking and meeting a lot of peers within one's group. I thought that was really important to me. I made a lot of friends there, friends that I still have today. And I think the third thing is getting to be at these symposiums and hearing from Latino and non-Latino leaders about their respective careers, sort of what worked for them, what lessons they had, the good and the bad as they went through their careers. To me, that was extraordinarily helpful. And I've tried in different ways to do that throughout my career. I'm just so excited for the 40 plus individuals that are doing it. And at the end of the day, I think that program, particularly as we've seen the Latino community expand over the last 12, 13 years— we're 60 plus million strong, 18% of the population here in the states. As we all know, our leaders— not of the Latino community, but leaders of the United States— are going to come out of our community. So the more we can do to make sure that we support them and nurture them and accelerate their growth, I think we're all going to benefit from it. So congratulations to you all.

Yeah, you know, I think like a lot of us, I don't have one mentor or one role model. I had so many people throughout my career. I was very fortunate that they took time to give me good advice, and I certainly wouldn't be here without that good advice and support. I'd highlight one or two buckets. First, I always say this, my most important and first mentors were my parents. My parents are immigrants, like so many millions from our community across the country. My mom from Cuba, my dad from Peru. And I think they instilled in me and my two younger brothers— one who's here with me today, who's an attorney here at Greenberg Traurig— they instilled great values in us early on: that immigrant mentality, that the most important thing, the one thing in the world that no one could ever take away from you, was an education. And they instilled that value in us very early on. So that was extraordinarily helpful, and obviously the values that go with it. I think the second, and you touched on it a little bit, was General Powell. Regardless of whether he was in the public or private sector, what I loved seeing and learning from him was his ability to communicate to all parts of his organization. The lesson I really took from him was: it was great if you were working in a particular industry and you had a job and you had a strategy, but if you weren't able to effectively communicate what you were trying to get done and then bring other people along with you in that effort, there's only so much impact you were going to have. So the big lesson for me from my experience with General Powell was perfecting and refining one's communication skills in small groups and larger groups, so that you could be very clear as to what you're trying to get done, and hopefully people will be supportive and you can come together. That's when you can make mass impact, that's when you can have real scalable impact. So that was another big lesson for me.

Well, you know, it's one of those lessons in life. People say it takes a village to get important things done, and this was no exception. When we started the project a few years ago at Telemundo Enterprises, we said, 'Gosh, we have this great opportunity. We've been given an incredible platform, but we want to do something special, we want to do something that's never been done.' So we set what we thought was a very ambitious goal and said, 'You know what? Yes, we would like to be the top-rated Hispanic network in the country.' Something that had never happened in Telemundo's history— 30 plus years that Nielsen has been rating here in the United States. But more importantly, we said it's not just about doing that; we want to do something that redefines Hispanic media, because we want to elevate and diversify the type of content that's being offered to Latinos here in the United States. With that ambition and goal, we set out to start building the team that had the skill set to be able to do that, convincing our corporate company Comcast NBCUniversal to make an investment because our community was worth it, and then executing on that goal. So three years— two and a half years from announcing that goal— we were very proud to have hit that milestone. But what I'm more proud about is that this is a team that's been able to replicate it two years in a row now, and we're well on our way to hopefully doing a three-peat. So I think it's a great lesson that if you can communicate a very clear message or ambition, build the right team, get the right resources, then focus on execution, you can have sustainable success. It's not a one-trick pony; it's sustainable. So it's been a lot of fun, and we still have a lot of work to do, but we're on a good trajectory.

Sure. Well, I think everyone— hopefully everyone in this room— knows how important the 2020 census is, period. It is particularly important for our community. Billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of federal funding get allocated to local municipalities, states, and the like for services, and so it's extraordinarily important for our community. We at Telemundo, in March, announced our community empowerment initiative called 'Hasta con Todo' or 'Be Counted' under our community empowerment platform available at AT&T. And our objective with this initiative of 'Hasta con Todo' is to make sure that our community one, participates in the 2020 census, understands the benefits, understands why they should be participating in it. But then, on a broader basis, we also want to increase civic engagement. We have so many amazing community organizations that are doing great work on the front lines. We at Telemundo, with our work, are really trying to support them, shine a light on those community organizations, many of whom are our partners, and make sure that we deliver for the Latinos here in the United States.

Yeah, we're very excited about that. You know, there's a big election coming up in 2020, and we were very proactive and aggressive because we have seen an increase obviously over the last decade of participation and the importance of Latinos. We do think we are reaching a tipping point, and so we've been very proactive in saying that the Latino community should have a seat at the table when we begin this process. So as the DNC— many of you know the two parties, the RNC and the DNC, manage their respective primary processes. The RNC, with the sitting president, will likely not have one. The DNC has sanctioned 12 debates that will happen in advance of the 2020 election. The first one, which is really the one you want to get because there's so much interest and pent-up demand, there was a big competitive process, and I'm very proud of our NBCUniversal team— we were awarded the first one, which is going to be on June 26th and 27th of this year. So it's going to be a long road here till November of 2020. They awarded it to NBCUniversal, and it's a very unique debate. First, it's going to be held here right here in Miami, so we're very excited about that. But second, we're going to be broadcasting it live on three of our platforms: Telemundo, NBC, and MSNBC, all at the same time. It is two nights to make sure that we can have space for all 20 candidates that will qualify. And it's a historic night because it's the first time that a Spanish-language network is co-hosting the first debate in a presidential cycle. And I think that speaks to the importance of our community.

Sure. Well, you know, the media landscape, as consumers you all know this, has undergone transformational change over the last ten years. I think we've seen that change accelerate even in the last two to three years, and that change is going to continue. One of the things that we have seen is that live sports, among other things— live news and other things— work still work very well, but live sports is an important one. So a few years ago we made the decision to go out and compete, and fortunately we won the rights to the biggest sporting event on the planet, which is the World Cup. So this past summer we held the first-ever World Cup that we oversaw, and it was the Men's World Cup in Russia. We have the rights through 2026, which is the first time that the World Cup will be coming back to the United States, so we're very excited about that. This summer, with that contract, we bring a lot of other tournaments. So this summer we're going to be hosting the Women's World Cup, and it's going to be held in France, and we're extraordinarily excited. We've seen such growth of the sport here in the United States. One of the primary focuses for us at Telemundo has been to lean into a lot of our initiatives when it comes to women empowerment and female empowerment. So we're really excited. We're making a big deal about this Women's World Cup, and we're all super supportive of Team USA. I think we're going to be able to do some special things in France.

Sure. Well, it's a tremendous privilege and honor for me to be on both of those boards. I think they're incredible companies, not only American companies but global companies. You know, why do I think Fortune 500 companies need to be focusing on— at the risk of stating the obvious to everyone in this room, but it's important we say this right. We always say this: the financial and economic success of the United States is directly linked to the success of the Latino community. We are the demographic that's driving all of the growth here in the United States. But we've become more than a demographic story, because we've read about it for so long that yes, there's a lot of numbers— 60 million strong. We've become a force that is having social, cultural, but most importantly economic impact. If you were to take today the Latino community as a standalone country, we would be the seventh largest GDP in the entire world, ahead of countries like Italy and Russia and others and India that you always read about as huge economies. We have that right here in our backyard. And any Fortune 500 company that takes a real look at their business, whatever products and services they're trying to sell, the overwhelming amount of their growth is coming from our community. So I and so many others are big believers that it's just good practice. You need to ensure that you have diverse voices at the table, certainly in boards, but equally important in management positions, not because it's a nice thing to do but because it's good business. So I take my hat off to Walmart and PepsiCo, and so many other companies that are recognizing that. Having said that, I still think corporate America is still way behind as to where they need to be. We're still in the single digits as it pertains to percent of Hispanics on corporate boards. And when you take into account again 18% of the population, there's no reason why we should have one Latino on some of these boards; we should have multiple, as well as other minority communities represented. So we're making a lot of progress, there's companies that have really stepped up, there's more work to be done.

Yeah, it's a few things. One is, the folks that serve on these boards, I always break them out into two very simple buckets. One is a lot of these boards are made up of individuals that are in sort of the latter part of their career, so either they are about to retire or they have retired as far as their daily jobs. And then there's some folks in the bucket that I put myself in: I'm a working man, and I have a day job. So when you also overlay the number of Hispanics or Latinos or minority community executives who are in the first bucket, we're still coming through the ranks, so there's not as many as there should be. So the lion's share is in the second bucket that are participating. Why do I say that's important? Because I think balancing career with extracurricular activities is important. I always tell people, and I try to keep this true to myself, my first priority is my day job. We need to produce, we need to perform, and that's my first responsibility. Having said that, it is important as a leader in a respective business, when you get that opportunity, to step up and make the time. One, because I think it's good growth as an executive— you get exposed to different things. But second and most importantly, you're able to make a contribution into those companies to really ensure that they're seeing the opportunity that exists for them here in the United States when it relates to some of these communities that haven't been represented in the past.

You know, I'd say two things. First, you definitely want to be known as— and I'd like to be known as— someone who had impact beyond oneself. In other words, it's nice to be successful, but it's important to have significance. One of the taglines of some of the programs of the Aspen Institute is 'How do you go from success to significance?' And our parents taught us great values in that it was important to make sure that you were successful in your respective career, but equally if not more important, it was that you had to make sure that you shared some of those lessons, not only for your younger siblings but for the generations that are coming behind you. So for me, that would be one of the most important things. And history will be the judge of that.