Emilio Romano is a businessman and attorney. He is Managing Director of

Bank of America Merrill Lynch BofA Securities, Inc., previously Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML), is an American multinational investment banking division under the auspices of Bank of America. It is not to be confused with Merrill, the stock brokerage and trading pla ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. He joins the financial firm from

Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast. It provides content ...

, where he served as President since 2011. Prior to this, Romano was president and CEO of Grupo Puerta Alameda, a

real estate development Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw Real Estate, land and the sale of developed land or parce ...

and investment company, as well as CEO of Grupo Mexicana de Aviación. He also served in several roles in the Mexican Ministry of Finance, including General Director of Tax Policy and Federal Fiscal Attorney.

Early life and education

Born in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

, Romano holds a law degree and graduated cum laude from the

Escuela Libre de Derecho Escuela Libre de Derecho (ELD) is a private law school in Mexico City, Mexico. Founded in 1912, it is one of the oldest law schools in Mexico and the oldest private institution focused in teaching law. Since its establishment in 1912, the Escue ...

. Additionally, he received a diploma in International Law at the

City of London Polytechnic London Guildhall University was a university in the United Kingdom from 1992 to 2002, established when the City of London Polytechnic was awarded university status. On 1 August 2002, it merged with the University of North London to form Londo ...

in London, UK.

Career

Romano's diverse career includes senior leadership roles within the media, aviation and digital industries, where he has held a wide range of positions over the past two decades, from entrepreneurial start-ups to the head of large scale business operations. At the start of his career, Romano worked for the Mexican Ministry of Finance in several positions, including Federal Fiscal Attorney and General Director of Revenue Policy. He also was the chief negotiator for over fifty customs and tax treaties, in addition to customs and tax affairs involving

NAFTA The North American Free Trade Agreement (, TLCAN; , ALÉNA), referred to colloquially in the Anglosphere as NAFTA, ( ) was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that created a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The ...

. In the 1990s, Romano served as Grupo Televisa’s Director of Mergers and Acquisitions, before being named Vice President of International Operations, where he supervised over 500 international employees. Romano then went on to co-manage Cablevisiόn, the largest cable network in Mexico. Romano was a member of the Board of Directors for

Univision Communications TelevisaUnivision (formerly known as Univision Communications) is a Mexican-American mass media, media company headquartered in Miami and Mexico City that owns American Spanish language broadcast network Univision and free-to-air channels in Mex ...

between 1995 and 1998, where he was responsible for leading numerous high-profile transactions, including the sale of

PanAmSat PanAmSat Corporation was a satellite service provider headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1984 by Reynold "Rene" Anselmo, it operated a fleet of communications satellites used by the entertainment industry, news a ...

Hughes Electronics Hughes Electronics Corporation was formed in 1985, when Hughes Aircraft was sold by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to General Motors for $5.2 billion. Surviving parts of Hughes Electronics are today known as DirecTV Group, while the automoti ...

; the formation of Via Digital DTH venture for the Iberian Peninsula; and the Sky Latin America joint venture with The News Corporation, Organizacoes Globo and TCI. Romano co-founded Border Group, LLC in 2001, where he served as an advisor to multiple media and entertainment companies. Additionally, he was a member of the Board of Directors for Claxson Interactive, a multimedia company offering branded entertainment content for Portuguese and Spanish speakers. Between 2004 and 2007, Romano was the CEO of Grupo Mexicana de Aviaciόn. His responsibilities there included overseeing the airline’s largest financial restructuring in its 87-year history, engineering the sale of Mexicana de Aviaciόn to a Mexican investor group and organizing the launch of

Click Mexicana MexicanaClick, formerly Click Mexicana, was Mexicana's regional operator, serving most of Mexicana's domestic routes between more than 25 Mexican cities. It was founded as a low-cost carrier, but changed its market to regional operations after i ...

, the first low-cost carrier in Mexico. As the President of Telemundo Media, he supervised Telemundo’s digital media group, Telemundo International, the

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award catego ...

Award-winning news and sports divisions, and the network’s sales and marketing units. Additionally, Romano oversees

mun2 Universo is an American pay television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises subsidiary of NBCUniversal. The network serves as a companion cable channel to the NBCUniversal's flagship broadcast television network NBC and, to som ...

, which is the fastest developing lifestyle cable network for young bicultural Latinos. Since joining the company in October 2011, Romano has led the network through the first rebrand in over a decade and has successfully increased ad revenue, distribution, digital content and original productions, strengthening Telemundo’s position as the #1 producer of Spanish-language prime time content. In 2012, Romano was recognized as one of the

Imagen Foundation The Imagen Awards are administered by the Imagen Foundation, an organization dedicated to "encouraging and recognizing the positive portrayals of Latinos in the entertainment industry." To be considered for an Imagen Award, a media piece or perso ...

’s Most Powerful & Influential Latinos in Entertainment and was chosen as a member of the 2012 CableFAX 100. Most recently, Romano was honored with the “Network Executive” award during the Multiethnic TV Leadership Awards presented by Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News.

Personal life

He is the President of IATA’s International Airline Training Fund Council and was on the Board of Directors for

Tam Linhas Aereas LATAM Airlines Brasil, formerly TAM Linhas Aéreas, is the Brazilian brand of LATAM Airlines Group operating international and domestic flights from hubs in Brasília, Fortaleza, and São Paulo. According to the National Civil Aviation Agency o ...

(NYSE: TAM).
Emilio Romano named president of Telemundo Romano lives with his wife and two daughters (Margot and Laura) in

. He is married to Alisa Drijanski, a chef and breadmaker who is also the sister of celebrity chef

Pati Jinich Patricia Jinich ( born Patricia Drijanski, March 30, 1972) is a Mexican-American chef, TV personality, cookbook author, educator, and food writer. She is best known for her James Beard Award-winningJames Beard Foundation"The 2018 James Beard Medi ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Romano, Emilio Mexican diaspora in the United States Telemundo People from Hialeah, Florida Businesspeople from Miami Businesspeople from Mexico City Escuela Libre de Derecho alumni Alumni of London Metropolitan University 20th-century Mexican lawyers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people