“Luis is someone who quietly and humbly seeks to inspire and motivate.” 

— Javier Pons Tubio, Chief Content Officer and Head, Telemundo Studios, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises 

By George Winslow

NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises chairman Luis Fernández remembers returning home from Santiago Bernabéu Stadium at age 10, after watching his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid, and sitting down in front of an old typewriter.
“I began to write a chronicle of the game, how the goalkeeper was very, very good, describing the shots and the team play,” he recalled with a laugh. “Journalism has always been my passion, my vocation.”
That passion for journalism deepened during what is known as la Transición, the period between the death of Spain’s military dictator, Francisco Franco, in November 1975 and the establishment of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy in 1978, as Fernández studied journalism at the Complutense University of Madrid and got his first jobs in radio. By 1978, at age 21, he was editor-in-chief of Spanish radio network Cadena COPE.
In 1981, he was inside the Congress of Deputies chamber during a failed military coup, when civil guards stormed the building and took legislators hostage for several hours.

Rising Quickly Through the Ranks
He rose throughout the 1980s and 90s to a series of increasingly important positions at major Spanish media companies such as Radio El Pais, Cadena SER, Canal+ and Telecinco, before moving to New York in 2003 to become the general manager of Plural Entertainment, a television and film production company owned by Grupo Prisa, and then CEO of Promofilm US.
By 2006, Fernández was so highly regarded in the Spanish media world, he was the first person elected as head of the Radio Television Española (RTE) as a consensus candidate backed by the ruling and opposition political parties. At RTE, he ended bullfighting broadcasts on public television and launched Tengo una pregunta para usted (I Have a Question for You), a show that revolutionized the relationship between politicians and television in Spain by allowing citizens to directly ask unfiltered questions of elected officials.
Cesar Conde, his current boss and former president of Univision, named him president of Univision Studios in 2009, then president of entertainment in 2010. He successfully ramped up that network’s in-house productions, developing some of its highest-rated programming. After a stint working for Real Madrid as CEO for Asia Pacific from 2014–16, Fernandez moved to Telemundo.
As executive vice president of network news for Telemundo from 2016 to 2021, Fernández doubled the network’s correspondent ranks, upgraded its news sets, significantly ramped up its digital and social media presence and launched a number of successful new shows. By the time he retired as head of Telemundo’s news operation, Fernández was already deserving of the B+C Hall of Fame Chairman’s Award, having earned numerous honors throughout his career, including multiple Emmys.

“Throughout his extraordinary career, Luis has time and again shown visionary leadership.”

— Cesar Conde, Chairman, NBCUniversal News Group

A Winning Second Act
Less than two years later, though Conde talked him into returning to work as the new chairman of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises. “Throughout his extraordinary career, Luis has time and again shown visionary leadership,” Conde, NBCUniversal News Group’s chairman, said in December 2023 when he made the appointment.
Quickly living up to that praise, Telemundo for the first time was the No. 1 U.S. Spanish-language network in Monday-Sunday primetime among total viewers in 2024 while delivering rapid growth on streaming, social media and digital platforms.
Although Univision returned to its traditional top spot in primetime for the 2025-26 season, Fernández’s focus on live programming, digital media and sports continues to pay off handsomely. Live content now accounts for more than 70% of Telemundo’s schedule, Fernandez said, with 2025 as “Telemundo’s most successful year.” Telemundo was the top Spanish-language network in daytime and Sunday primetime.
It also saw rapid growth in streaming and social media: Telemundo now has the most followers on TikTok of any U.S. news organization, regardless of language, and has delivered record-setting streaming and TV audiences for the Super Bowl and FIFA World Cup.
“Hispanics are an audience that watches more live TV, adopts streaming and digital faster, and moves naturally across languages, platforms and cultures,” Fernández said. “This is how we think about scale today: Not just reach, but connection, relevance and impact.”
After thanking his wife, Silvia Bermudez, and three grown kids for the joy they’ve brought him, Fernández credited much of his career success to understanding audiences, building great teams and “two things I always tell my three kids: be humble and be responsible.”
“Luis is someone who quietly and humbly seeks to inspire and motivate,” added Javier Pons Tubio, chief content officer and head, Telemundo Studios, at NBCU Telemundo Enterprises. He gives “his teams the freedom to do their work” and at the same time is “someone who is bold in his vision and [willing] to challenge the status quo,” Pons Tubio said. “His contributions, [which] have been instrumental to the growth of Hispanic media, [are] always rooted in hard work, strategic thinking, teamwork and innovation.”