Luis Villanueva

Luis Villanueva is an international television and entertainment executive. He was born in Caracas, Venezuela.

Luis Villanueva has been with the Cisneros Group of Companies (“CGC”) since November 1982. In his over 25 years of service with CGC, Mr. Villanueva has held several key positions within the organization.

Mr. Villanueva began his career with CGC as an associate to the Corporate Treasury VP. He then became Corporate Treasurer for the Systems Division. With Summa Corporation, a CGC holding, Mr. Villanueva was Treasurer for the Affiliated Companies for 4 years and Corporate Treasurer for the Systems Division for one year.

Mr. Villanueva’s rise through the company then continued to Venevisión Television Network, Channel 4, in Caracas, Venezuela. He began as Treasury Manager in 1987 and left as its Vice President/ General Manager Associate.

From there, Mr. Villanueva was transferred to the corporate offices of CGC. In May 1994, Mr. Villanueva was appointed Vice President of Finance and soon promoted to Executive Vice President of Corporate Finance & Development. He held that position until January 1997.

In February 1997 Mr. Villanueva was named President of Venevisión International as well as President of Chilevisión, a newly acquired television station in Chile. He held this former position until the assets of the television station were sold in March 1999. Today Mr. Villanueva sits, as well, on the Board of Directors of CLAXSON.

As President and CEO of Venevision International Mr. Villanueva is responsible for the company’s growth and development in TV programming distribution, co-productions and original productions that the company develops to satisfy the need of its clientele around the world. He is also in charge of looking for ways to be at the forefront of the new technologies that might impact VVI’s businesses and explore opportunities to innovate in both product and services.

Venevision International has been in the market for more than 30 years. Today it is a diversified entertainment company and one of the two leading Spanish language TV programming distribution companies. It is The Cisneros Group programming distribution entity as well as a key Spanish language TV production company and film and music distributor in The United States, among other business units. VVI’s TV products have been broadcasted in more than 104 countries and translated into 20 languages. Last year, VVI broadcasted 21.000 hours of programming in Iberoamerica (Latin-America, Spain and Portugal)

Mr. Villanueva is an Economist graduated the Andres Bello Catholic University in 1982. He received his M.B.A. in Business Administration in 1984, from the same school.

Mr. Villanueva has received two prestigious honors from the Venezuelan government: the Order of Diego de Losada in its First Class, and the Order of Francisco de Miranda in its Second Class. In March 2002 Mr. Villanueva was honored with the keys to the city of Miami, a merit given by the Miami-Dade County in Florida, for Venevision International’s exceptional contribution to the arts and culture of the local community.