White Men Can Jump
As Hearst-Argyle veteran Terry Mackin brushes up on his Spanish to take the stations president job over at Univision, one reader laments the notion of yet another white guy jumping to a big job at a Spanish-language media company.
"Once again, Spanish Language media keeps hiring non-hispanics to the top posts," writes Jesus Perez. "The names you hear at Telemundo and Univision are: Don Brown, John Lippman, Terry Mackin, Tim Schultz… Same goes for other cable companies: Chris Calcinari, Russell Wolf head ESPN Deportes…"
Mackin, for one, is no stranger to running broadcast properties that operate in a language other than English; prior to Hearst, he ran the 7-station Russian broadcaster StoryFirst. “I was about as skilled in cross-cultural communication as I was in nuclear science,” he told us about his first trip to Moscow.
Interesting issue. What’s more important for such a candidate, job experience or cultural experience?
Terry Mackin commented:
I would ask you to consider the facts about running any successful media company: 1) Know your customer 2) deliver great programming 3) Maintain empathetic relationships with advertising clients who need to compete for customers 4) Communicate a corporate vision and recruit every employee to own his/her role in the company and 5) Be a leader in the community. Univision owns powerful brands on multiple platforms: TV, Radio, Internet and wireless. Univision invests in research that allows the company to stay current on consumer trends. In Russia, we built and launched a network of 150 affiliates and 7 O&O's. The network ranks in top three today. Univision owns established brands and the company is blessed with enormous talent many of whom are skilled executives from 2nd and 3rd generation Latino families.