Alliance Of Latinx Executives, Including Cris Abrego, John Pollak & Nina Tassler, Looks To Help Hollywood Bolster Senior Diverse Recruitment; Sets First Event

Peter White
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

EXCLUSIVE: A new group of senior Latinx executives has been created to help Hollywood fill senior roles across the TV industry with more diverse faces.

The Alliance of LatinX Executives compromises more than 100 executives including a slew of senior producers and network executives.

More from Deadline

Execs include Cris Abrego, Chairman of the Americas, Banijay and President and CEO, Endemol Shine Holdings; John Pollak, the former NBCU exec who recently set up a management company with Wilmer Valderrama; and Nina Tassler, the former CBS Entertainment chairman who now runs PatMa Productions with Denise Di Novi (more names below).

The group is looking to help Latinx execs get a leg up in the industry and help create more diverse recruitment at the networks, streamers, studios, production companies and agencies.

It is holding its first event this week — Thursday at 5 p.m. at EP&LP in West Hollywood — in association with the Latin Tracking Board to increase focus on these issues. The Latin Tracking Board, founded in 2017, is a networking group for up-and-coming LatinX entertainment professionals.

In the short term, the alliance is looking to help fill as many open senior level positions with Latinx executives as possible as well as champion and support the next generation of Latinx executives to ensure they continue to grow and climb the executive ladder.

Over the long term, it is looking to help companies hire as many Latinx employees as it can into entry-level positions, ensuring Latinx talent continues to populate the industry pipeline.

By creating an executive network, the alliance also allows senior-level Latinx executives to connect with each other, champion each other, support each other and their projects, and be advocates when sought-after senior-level positions become available.

The hope is that such a move will also help Latinx writers and producers who might not have had a chance to get their projects made gain more allies internally to champion them.

The founding group also includes Fabrizio Alcobe, who previously ran Telemundo Global Studios; Latin World Entertainment’s Luis Balaguer; Adriana Cisneros, CEO of Grupo Cisneros; Collective Moxie’s Julie Ann Crommett; Universal Television Alternative Studio’s Minerva Lopez; Univision’s Rodrigo Mazon; UTA’s Laura Roenick; Propagate Content’s Isabel San Vargas; and 51 Minds’ Christian Sarabia.

“Initially we created the Alliance of LatinX Executives because of the glaring issue that there is a very limited amount of senior-level Latinx executives in the entertainment industry,” Pollak told Deadline. “Our main goal from the onset was to ensure that senior level executive positions were populated with as many qualified Latinx executives as possible. We firmly believe that authentic and sustained change must come from within the industry.”

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.