V I D E O • A G E AP R I L 2 0 1 1 36 (Continued on Page 38) (Continued from Cover) Father & Daughter Teams Daniele is 69. Currently, in the luxury goods business, there are Bernard and Delphine Arnault, his oldest child (he has five children from two wives). The 61-year-old Bernard is worth $27.5 billion and runs LVMH (Louis Vuitton, Dior, Fendi, etc.) along with his 36-year-old daughter. Her net worth is estimated at $3.9 billion. Jan and Cristina Stenbeck represented a team from Sweden. When her father died at the age of 60, New York-born Cristina, then 25 years old, took contol of Kinnevik, which, in turn, controls Modern Times Group, one of Sweden’s largest TV groups. From Mexico: Televisa’s Emilio Azcárraga Milmo, who died in 1997 at the age of 66, and his daughter, Ariana Azcárraga de Surmont, from his second wife (he had five wives, three daughters and one son). Ariana is now 45 years old and, until recently, she was chairman of Televisa Networks (formerly Visat). Perhaps it is because such teams are rare and hard to come by that they tend to be more successful than others. Forbes reported that, according to a 2009 study from the University of Maryland, only six percent of women born in the early 1900s went into their father’s industry, compared with about 20 percent of those born between 1960 and 1980. Even though father and daughter teams in the entertainment sector are few, other industries have even fewer. For example, in the construction business, the only prominent example is the U.S. real estate firm of Donald and Ivanka Trump. In finance there is the team of Edward III and Abigail Johnson of Fidelity Investments. From Canada, the former team of Frank and Belinda Stronach ran one of the world’s biggest auto parts companies, Magna International. Mother and daughter teams are also rare intheentertainmentbusiness,withtheonly prominent example coming from 70-yearold Liz (Elisabeth) Mohn and 47-year-old Brigitte Mohn, who own the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Naturally, the list of father and daughter teams is limited to private groups or family-controlled public companies, since in pure publicly-traded companies nepotism can be illegal (in countries such as Italy) or fall under discrimination laws or investigations by trading authorities (like in the U.S.). Geographically, father and daughter teams are mainly scattered throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and Latin America. Latin America tops the list with ten current entries: Venevision: Gustavo and Adriana Cisneros (Venezuela and Florida) SBT: Senor Abravanel (Silvio Santos) and Daniela Beyruti (Brazil) Frequencia Latina: Baruch andMichal (Miki) Ivcher (Peru and Florida) Televicentro: Jose Rafael and Pia Ferrari (Honduras) Ecuavisa: Xavier and Ana Cecilia Alvarado (Ecuador) Albavision: Remigo Angel and Morelia Gonzalez (Florida and Guatemala) Centauro: Gustavo, Andrea and Francoise Nieto (Florida, Colombia and Brazil) Teleunsa: Elias and Diana Asfura (Honduras) Red Uno: Ivo and Jessica Kuljis (Bolivia) Telemicro: Juan Ramon and Ivette Gomez Diaz (Dominican Republic) One past entry from Mexico: Emilio Azcárraga and Ariana Azcarraga de Surmont The U.S. follows with four current entries and four past entries: News Corp: Rupert and Liz Murdoch Viacom/CBS: Sumner and Shari Redstone NewsProNet: Rick and Deanna Ray The Lippin Group: Richard (Dick) and Alex Lippin Playboy: Hugh and Christie Hefner Eon Productions: Cubby and Barbara Broccoli Carlos, Maria and Caroline Barba Eduardo and Rosamaria Caballero Italy has two current entries: Mediaset: Silvio and Marina Berlusconi LUX Vide: Ettore and Matilde Bernabei One current entry from Canada: Corus Entertainment: James Robert ( JR) and Heather Shaw Two past entries come from Scandinavia: TV Norge: Ola and Benedicte Steinsrud (Norway) Kinnevik: Jan and Cristina Stenbeck (Sweden) Beforemovingtoindividualdescriptions, the Broccoli father and daughter team deserves a few more lines for producing the James Bond films. In 1990 at the age of 81, New York-born Albert Romolo Broccoli (affectionately known as Cubby) turned control of Eon Productions over to his then 30-year-old daughter Barbara, who was born in Los Angeles. Broccoli liked to keep his family close, so the children, Barbara and her half brother Michael G. Wilson, grew up around the Bond film sets. Barbara served in several capacities under her father from the age of 20 and got her first screen credit in the 1983 Bond film Octopussy. Barbara and Michael have co-produced Bond (and non-Bond) films since Albert’s death in 1996. Rome, Italy-based media company, Caltagirone Editore (CE) also deserves to be mentioned. Although it is not in filmandtelevision,itisItaly’sfifthlargest editorial group. A public company, CE is controlled and run by 68-year-old founder Francesco Caltagirone and his 38-year-old daughter Azzurra. U.S.-based Latin companies of particular importance include The Caballero Radio Network, created in 1973 and run by the founder, Eduardo Caballero then 44, and his daughter Rosamaria, who, in 1999 at age 34 helped him to create a TV network before selling the group to Viacom in 2006. Among the aforementioned teams about which VideoAge did not receive sufficient information by press time are Honduras’ Elias and Diana Asfura from Teleunsa, Bolivia’s Ivo and Jessica Kuljis from Red Uno, and the Dominican Republic’s Juan Ramon and IvetteGomez Diaz from Telemicro. A final annotation: Latin America has always been considered a macho (Spanish for masculine) region. But judging from the large number of daughters that have joined their fathers in business, compared to other regions in the world, one has to conclude that North America or even Europe is more macho, while Latin America is hembra. GUSTAVO ANDADRIANA CISNEROS Gustavo and Adriana Cisneros The 66-year-old Gustavo Cisneros has headed Venezuela’s Cisneros Group of companies since 1970. He took over nine years after his Cuban-born father, Diego, founded Venevision, Venezuela’s largest private broadcaster, in partnership with America’s ABC TV network. Today, the Group, one of the world’s largest private enterprises, generates $4 billion a year and is comprised of 70 companies operating in 39 countries, making his family one of the wealthiest in the world with an estimated worth of $10.7 billion. Among his prized possessions is the Miss Venezuela beauty pageant, which he acquired in 1980. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Gustavo is also a citizen of Spain and the Dominican Republic and maintains residences in New York City and Miami as well. Indeed, his business philosophy is to view North and South America as a single market. Gustavo was Diego’s fourth child out of eight children: seven sons and one daughter, and his younger brother Ricardo is his partner. Educated in the U.S., Gustavo graduated from Babson College in Massachusetts in 1968 and trained at New York’s ABC TV station. In New York in 1970 he married Patricia (Patty) Phelps, whose family founded RCTV, Venevision’s competitor. As with other media moguls, Cisneros walks the fine line between disclosures and business. He’s very careful about his and his family’s public image. Indeed, very few personal details can be found about his wife Patty or their three children, Carolina, Guillermo and Adriana. Even in a 2004 book, Gustavo Cisneros Pioneer, which was publicized as Gustavo’s biography and the company’s history, no mention is made of his three children, except in pictured family photos. It is possible that at the time no command succession had been developed. Recently, however, as per March 2010, Adriana Cisneros, the 31-year-old daughter of Gustavo and the youngest of his three children, has emerged “As a thirdgeneration leader of the Cisneros Group,” as stated on the company website, which also points out that, as vice chairman, “She works closely with her father in managing operations and in developing strategy for the Group as a whole.” Adriana joined her father in 2005, moving around four positions before taking her current role as vice chairman. She received a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 2002 and a master’s degree in Journalism from New York University in 2005. Adriana, who’s also the mother of a son and a daughter, lives in Manhattan with her husband Nicholas Griffin, a British writer, and in Coral Gables, Florida.
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