Marcelo Fumasoni, the VP of Human Resources TelevisaUnivision & HR Head ViX, is a visionary leader who embodies passion, purpose, and strategic thinking. With a wealth of experience and a deep commitment to creating a positive impact, Marcelo has steered the company’s human resources strategies toward excellence and innovation. His leadership has not only transformed the employee experience but has also contributed significantly to the company’s overall success.
From Argentina to the US, Shaping HR with Purpose and Technology
Marcelo’s journey in human resources began at a young age, influenced by his father’s work. He recalls helping his father with resumes at the age of eight, which sparked his passion for identifying people who can match a job and a company culture. This early exposure laid the foundation for Marcelo’s career path, leading him to pursue Human Resources at university.
A pivotal milestone in Marcelo’s career was his transfer to the US almost 20 years ago. Born and raised in Argentina, he pursued his university studies at the UADE, graduating with a Bachelor’s in Industrial Relationships. Working for a pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca, he was transferred to the US to help develop Latin America’s first regional office and build their teams.
In this role, Marcelo had to partner with US and international leaders to set cross-geographical teams, create a compelling business proposition, and build internal and local capabilities. He notes, “In four years, we have accomplished a robust footprint in Latin America and reached a competitive market share. We also developed many best practices in the commercial and HR field that were successfully exported lately to other emerging markets.”
Marcelo has received various recognitions from entities like Great Place to Work, celebrating consistency in his team’s abilities and capacity to build a unique legacy in the industry and Latin America region. He attributes his growth to the influence and inspiration of great business and HR leaders.
He has worked for renowned companies like AstraZeneca, Novartis, and Microsoft and is currently at TelevisaUnivision, where he serves the Latin and Hispanic communities. Marcelo believes that being an HR professional today is a privilege, with a perfect intersection between management capabilities, innovative technology, and a humanistic approach to addressing complex challenges.
The Evolution of HR and Industry Shifts
Marcelo reflects on the significant technological advancements that have reshaped the HR landscape since the pandemic, noting, “Technology has changed significantly since that moment. But I can see that I’ve seen pretty much everything in the human resources industry, and I feel very blessed.” He emphasizes the importance of HR professionals in impacting people’s lives and an organization’s bottom line, seeing this as a fantastic time for HR professionals to leverage technology and knowledge about human behavior to drive culture and people development.
In his early career stages, Marcelo observed the dominance of the concepts of hard and soft skills in the corporate world. He noted that being a robust professional meant excelling in areas like compounding, headcount cost planning, union management, training allocation, compensation and benefits, and employee relations. At the same time, culture was considered a softer aspect and not as prioritized. Marcelo notes the shift from focusing on hard skills to a more holistic approach that includes building strong organizational capabilities and people & culture strategies, which can have a more integral impact on business growth. He highlights the significant evolution in HR, emphasizing HR professionals’ newfound impact in shaping culture and fostering engagement to drive great results.
Marcelo emphasizes HR’s core mission of helping individuals build successful careers and develop themselves to their fullest potential. He highlights the effort required to coordinate and align a vision with senior leaders to achieve this goal: “We always said that our mission in HR is to help people have fantastic careers, develop themselves, and be at their best. It requires lots of effort, consistency, and institutionalized management from HR and leaders to correctly determine how to role model and align with our vision, values, and evolving culture.”
Acknowledging the impact of technology, particularly highlighted during the pandemic, Marcelo notes the opportunity it has provided to redirect efforts towards areas of greater significance, such as human interaction and people development. He stresses the importance of promoting values, behaviors, and a sense of belonging through a positive work environment, rewards, recognition, and close manager interaction.
Marcelo observes, “I always say this to the new generations: we have a very strong responsibility because we are impacting people’s lives and also the P&L of an organization through transformational change and technology. This is a fantastic time for HR professionals because we can leverage technology and what we know about human behavior to create innovative cultures, sustainable people development, and generate a better impact across the large organization and its ecosystems.”
TelevisaUnivision and ViX: Revolutionizing Spanish-Language Media
TelevisaUnivision, the world’s leading Spanish-language media company, boasts the largest library of owned Spanish-language content and stands as the top producer of original content in Spanish across news, sports, and entertainment. ViX, their streaming service, offers “80,000 hours of free and paid premium content across genres, including movies, comedy series, novelas, drama series, and children’s content, as well as live news and sports,” celebrating Latin cultures and Spanish-speaking storytellers. This year, ViX hit 50 million monthly active users globally, and the streaming video reach also grew by 70% year over year in the U.S.
In its first year, ViX’s premium tier delivered 7,000 hours of live sports and over 70 ViX Original series and movies. Marcelo aims to provide subscribers with the broadest, most premium Spanish-language content ever offered in streaming.
TelevisaUnivision’s teams are dedicated to comprehensively and responsibly informing, empowering, and entertaining the Hispanic community. Particularly in the US, they strive to serve their communities and audiences, helping them become “healthier, wealthier, and prouder of their identity and culture.” Collaborating with senior leaders and other relevant functions, their HR team develops and executes initiatives to develop skills, provide access to resources and general education, and build social capital to empower the Latino community.
To maintain a leading position in the media and entertainment industry, TelevisaUnivision focuses on building an inclusive culture, celebrating success, and learning from the founding fathers of its linear businesses. It integrates its new streaming and digital platforms efficiently into the large TU organization and models the future of work in the streaming industry.
A Leap into New Territory with TelevisaUnivision
Marcelo’s transition to TelevisaUnivision stemmed from a desire for fresh challenges and growth opportunities. Despite his background outside of media and entertainment, he was attracted to the chance to lead a global organization in a completely new business segment based on his passion and knowledge of technology and digital transformation, apart from the unique opportunity to deeply connect with his purpose to serve Hispanics in the US and across the globe.
At TelevisaUnivision, Marcelo and his team strive to understand their audience and offer them relevant content on the right screen, either linear, digital, or streaming. Despite being ViX, a relatively young company operating for only 18 months, Marcelo recognized the rich legacy spanning over 50 years coming from Televisa and Univision. He embraced the challenge of his global role in a large multinational organization, operating within a Division with a full start-up and entrepreneurial mindset.
Marcelo expresses his excitement and says, “This opportunity allows me to collaborate and help create a team that will make history by producing original content that impacts our Hispanic community. I’m amazed by our ability to create a streaming organization that can leverage the company’s existent sports, entertainment, and news platform in a distinctive way.”
Overall, Marcelo sees his role at TelevisaUnivision as an opportunity to design and transform a unique organization, almost from the ground up, lead a team that will make history, impact society through innovative content creation, and, most importantly, build a legacy for the Hispanic generations to come. This opportunity, rare in HR where established companies are often the norm, aligns with his innate curiosity, drive for innovation, and purpose-driven mentality.
Driving Diversity and Inclusion: A Key Role for HR
Marcelo’s perspective on diversity and inclusion (D&I) has significantly evolved over the years. He recalls a time when these concepts were not integral to HR practices, noting, “Thirty+ years ago, when I started in HR, we were not talking about inclusion, gender representation, or minorities. We lacked a relevant awareness about the discrepancies in our working population.”
Through his experiences working in the US, Canada, and Latin America, Marcelo began to appreciate the importance of promoting real diversity in talent pools. He has observed an incredible evolution in D&I practices over the past 30 years, noting that most companies now embrace D&I more comprehensively.
Marcelo believes that D&I is essential for building a robust talent pipeline and has seen firsthand the positive impact it can have on organizations. He observes, “Building a robust talent pipeline requires diversity to be a key component of it.” One of his notable achievements was promoting gender representation in organizations. Marcelo highlights its effort, saying, “It took us more than five years to reach 50 percent gender representation in a former organization that I’ve worked, particularly in the Executive Level and Latin America markets, but it was worth the effort.”
While D&I may not be directly attached to Marcelo’s organization like corporate social responsibility or sustainability, he believes it is something HR should champion. He emphasizes the need to create an impact and make intentional decisions to support leaders in promoting diversity. He is proud of the progress made in promoting gender representation and believes that D&I should be driven by conviction, not just compliance.
Marcelo remarks, “It’s no longer just about compliance but about conviction and the need for the best representation internally to mirror the diversity of our audiences externally.” He sees diversity and inclusion as a never-ending challenge but is proud to see them being part of every organization in a much more holistic and comprehensive way.
Contributing to creating a work environment that is open to all non-partisan and non-biased voices is vital for a large media and entertainment organization like TelevisaUnvision. All voices must be represented, and as HR leaders, Marcelo and his team are responsible for amplifying and highlighting their voices to be represented.
To support this aspiration and goal, they have active listening eco-systems (e.g., collaborative and personalized TU website, CEO and leaders town halls, global engagement surveys), which usually give them an edge to help managers have a close relationship with their teams, be emphatic and pulse check the sentiment of their internal audience along the year.
Fostering Talent and Making a Difference
Throughout his career, Marcelo has consistently demonstrated a passion for fostering talent and creating a positive impact. He finds fulfillment in seeing individuals on LinkedIn who now hold leadership positions, knowing he played a part in their development. One particular highlight was mentoring a high-potential talent who later became his boss. Marcelo found it incredibly rewarding to see someone he had invested in rise to such a significant leadership role.
Citing the success of executives he mentored in Latin America, the US, and Canada as a significant marker of his impact, Marcelo explains, “I’ve always had these big numerical achievements in mind, like running a company with 50,000 employees and achieving large revenue and growth targets. However, looking at my life with a bit of perspective now, I would say that my biggest achievement has been in people development. I had the opportunity to nurture and prepare young talent who eventually took on significant roles, even moving across countries. Witnessing their growth and success has been truly gratifying and rewarding in my life.”
Marcelo’s contributions to Diversity and Inclusion have also been recognized, notably by the Red Shoe Movement (RSM). His work in promoting gender representation has earned him Leadership awards, and he considers representing his experiences and contributions at special corporate events, such as the annual RSM Global Conference held in New York, a significant milestone. These experiences highlight his passion for creating awareness and promoting diversity in the workplace.
Managing Priorities in the Fast-Paced Media Industry
Marcelo’s day in the fast-paced media and entertainment industry starts with a team meeting to set priorities and prepare for the day ahead. He understands the need to be flexible and ready for unexpected events like breaking news or content launches. Following the meeting, Marcelo focuses on planning, especially during talent season. He enjoys working with his team and clients, prioritizing all reviews of talent pools and succession plans, working on organizational design needs, building high-performing teams, and organizing how to build critical capabilities for the future.
Being part of a large organization’s media and entertainment division allows Marcelo and his team to leverage everyone’s knowledge and strengths, ensuring a well-coordinated workflow. His days are dynamic, filled with opportunities to plan, strategize, and collaborate with his team.
As an HR professional, Marcelo partners with the CEO and senior leaders to define and execute key business strategic goals through an appropriate People’s agenda. He structures processes and policies to support the right culture, people development, and a high-performance team mentality to drive results and growth.
Navigating the Evolution of Media with Innovation and Adaptability
Working at ViX, a young organization within the TelevisaUnivision group, Marcelo and his team adapt rapidly to compete and lead the streaming industry in the Hispanic target audience worldwide. They dedicate time to driving key HR processes like setting annual targets, performance reviews, coaching and mentoring, annual compensation cycles, engagement surveys, and cultural interventions.
With a diverse media and streaming organization at ViX, Marcelo’s stakeholders range from Marketing to Content, Operations to Product Development, and Global Licensing to Global Distribution. They must work together seamlessly to ensure their content reaches the audience daily and joyfully, akin to an orchestra in harmony.
Marcelo and his team prioritize staying close to their business partners, understanding their needs, providing coaching, and properly understanding each division’s challenges and opportunities. This approach ensures they add value to every interaction and contribute to the organization’s success.
Marcelo reflects on how new technology is reshaping the media industry, driving innovation, and creating new challenges and opportunities for traditional media companies and digital natives alike. Adapting to these technological changes is crucial for staying competitive and meeting the evolving needs of audiences in the digital age. For example, in the past two years, there has been an acceleration in the cultural understanding of what Artificial Intelligence is, how it works, and how it will affect our future within Streaming.
Building internal capabilities around generative AI, machine learning, and augmented virtual reality, among others, will help organizations enhance the creative path and production development and scale digital platforms more comprehensively and accessible for customers. Marcelo is permanently exploring and learning how new technology can be used to make his organization more efficient and develop his business to new levels.
Taking a Holistic View of Success as a Leader
Marcelo reflects on the multifaceted nature of success, emphasizing preparation, collaboration, continuous learning, and adaptability. He believes success is not merely achieving a set goal but a holistic concept encompassing various factors. “It’s mainly about preparation, collaboration, teamwork, being curious, having a mindset of continuous learning, and acquiring and putting into practice capabilities related to flexibility and adaptability,” he insists.
Marcelo sees success as embracing these elements, along with a sense of purpose in serving others, and most importantly, the impact he generates on individuals, teams, and society. “At the very end, because of what we do at TelevisaUnivision, there’s a big sense of purpose, in serving the Hispanic community. So, success emerges from embracing all these elements to me,” he shares. Marcelo notes that his definition of success has evolved from early career ambitions focused on personal achievements and organizational growth to a more senior perspective centered on impacting others and serving a larger purpose.
“As time evolves and you become a little bit more of a senior leader, you try to see where the impact goes of your effort and how you can build on the strengths of others primarily. You don’t have to be Superman/Superwoman. It is important to recognize that we are not in a place anymore where to ‘know it all’ is a primary need to lead effectively. Now we must embrace a ‘learn it all’ mentality to evolve and develop a growth mindset and build more innovative things together.” Marcelo observes.
He highlights the importance of building through teams, leveraging effort, knowledge, innovation, collaboration with diversity through inclusion, and participative teams to make a meaningful impact in society. “We have just finalized an off-site with our leadership team at ViX, where we focus on dedicating quality time to continue fostering a culture of collaboration, partnership, innovation, and effectiveness. We must acknowledge and celebrate that we built this organization 18 months ago, and it’s today a great success,” Marcelo states proudly.
Striking the Balance: The Journey to Well-being
Marcelo reflects on his early career, noting the neglect of well-being in pursuit of professional success. He contrasts this with the conscientious approach of today’s younger generations, particularly in areas like corporate social responsibility. “I believe I’ve made significant advances in achieving a better work-life balance over the years. I now recognize the importance of recovery and re-energize, ensuring I get enough ‘batteries’ to maintain my productivity and efficiency in my professional and personal life,” he says.
He emphasizes the importance of asking for help and being vulnerable, underscoring the necessity of well-being for productivity and efficiency in all dimensions. “I’ve learned to ask for help when needed, acknowledging that vulnerability is a strength. This mindset not only benefits me but also allows me to better support my team. I’ve understood that proper well-being is crucial, even during intense work commitments. It’s about knowing when to push forward and when to take a step back to recharge,” Marcelo reflects.
After the pandemic, Marcelo has focused on aspects of his professional and personal life that energize or re-energize him, especially after periods of high-level stress. He has learned to adapt to life’s non-linear nature, making conscious decisions to maintain balance and be at his best for his family, team, and community. He emphasizes four routines to keep his mind and heart aligned and fueled. “First, always connect with your purpose in life… Second, celebrate your success… Third, make yourselves available to help others… And last but not least, plan for fun!”
As an HR practitioner, Marcelo aims to create a work environment where everyone can be at their best. This includes having an inclusive, highly attractive physical space (for office-centric organizations) that drives innovation, stimulates collaboration, and builds a culture of partnership, performance, and service. Marcelo’s work motivation is to help and support his people and teams have fulfilling careers and job experiences while serving and impacting the Hispanic community worldwide through bringing original and unique content.
Shaping the Future With Passion and Vision
Passion is Marcelo’s trademark, serving as a powerful motivator through challenges. He recalls a conversation with various artists about innovation: “They mentioned that deep passion for their jobs and the positive impact it generated in others was the key main driver for innovation and evolution.” This resonated with Marcelo, bringing to mind his favorite inspirational quote in his professional life, “Persistence, Patience, Perfection, Power, Passion. Always prioritize Passion; It will keep you sane.”
As an HR leader, Marcelo aims to build a People and Culture legacy, positively impacting and inspiring future HR professionals. He describes himself as a passionate learner, operating with a deep purpose to create a positive impact. He believes passion enables people to use their best gifts, regardless of the field, and emphasizes the importance of consistently following your north star.
To overcome personal roadblocks, Marcelo suggests being true to oneself, stepping out of the comfort zone, and maintaining a permanent learning mindset. He believes in being curious, proactive, and making intentional decisions to achieve long-term goals. He relies on questions like ‘Why not?’ and ‘What if?’ to avoid mental barriers and focus on learning opportunities.
Advice for the New Generation: How to Be Happy In What You Do
Marcelo stresses the importance of intentionality in making decisions in today’s fast-paced world. He advises the new generation to reflect on their priorities in both personal and professional lives, emphasizing consistency in execution and mastery of knowledge to make a genuine impact.
Marcelo emphasizes the need to drive his team’s capabilities and consistently strive for excellence. He emphasizes the significance of passion and purpose in achieving success and happiness in one’s work. He warns against becoming a passionless perfectionist, noting that passion, focus, and direction are essential for enjoying the journey and making a difference.
Regarding career development, Marcelo advises aspiring HR professionals to be intentional in every decision, especially in the early stages. He suggests considering when to transition to a new role, which new skills to acquire, and how to leverage side projects and mentoring opportunities for growth. Marcelo encourages HR professionals to challenge the status quo, embrace new opportunities, stay curious, and maintain a learning mindset, believing this is an exciting time to be in HR.
He believes that HR professionals can significantly leverage their management experience, technology, and humanistic approach to impact organizations and communities. Marcelo’s message to all aspiring and young HR professionals is to be thoughtful and intentional in every decision related to their career development. He advises them to seek exposure to different experiences and build a network of mentors to help them adjust and evolve accordingly during their career path evolution.
Conclusion
Marcelo Fumasoni’s role as the VP of Human Resources TelevisaUnivision & HR Head ViX is not just a job but a calling. His passion for creating a positive impact, coupled with his strategic approach and hands-on leadership style, has set him apart as a truly remarkable leader. Marcelo’s vision for the future of the company, coupled with his dedication to nurturing a culture of excellence and innovation, makes him a driving force behind TelevisaUnivision’s success.
