September 2004

In March, Ronny Finvarb became the Executive Director of Business & Legal Affairs at Telemundo Network Group, a division of NBC Universal, where he handles business and legal affairs matters for all of the network's primetime programming, including reality shows, such as Protagonistas, music programs, and all of the network's telenovelas. Ronny's role at Telemundo is to structure, negotiate, and to close agreements with the actors, writers, directors, promoters, production companies, film studios, and TV/film distributors. He is also involved in the legal management of Telemundo's local production studios.

"This was a great opportunity for me to enter the domestic Hispanic market, the fastest growing demographic in the country, with the fastest growing television network in the country."

Prior to Telemundo, Ronny was with HBO Latin America, where he ran the Business Affairs department and was responsible for all of the network's entertainment legal matters. HBO Latin America is a partnership between Sony Pictures, Disney, and Time Warner that distributes cable and satellite programming in Latin America and the Caribbean. Some of the channels for which Ronny provided legal services were HBO, Cinemax, E! Entertainment, A&E, The History Channel, and The Disney Channel. Ronny was also instrumental in the recent launch of HBO Family, a new family-oriented channel.

After graduating from UM Law in 1996, Ronny worked in the legal department of Island Records on Miami Beach for a year before going to work for Claxson, a NASDAQ-listed company. Formerly known as Cisneros Television Group, Claxson manages and distributes television channels primarily to Spanish and Portuguese speaking markets. Initially, he worked as an attorney for Claxson, but his role later expanded to include acquisitions which sent him to television and film trade shows and screenings all over the country and to Cannes, France. With Playboy TV International as one of the company's joint ventures, Ronny was involved in the expansion and rollout of the Playboy channel throughout the world. He also saw a good deal of work in piracy enforcement and international copyright law during his five years with Claxson.

When Ronny was graduating from law school, he passed on several offers from the large firms in Miami because he was interested in practicing strictly entertainment law. In the eight years that he has been practicing, the entertainment industry has continued to grow steadily in South Florida and today there are only a handful of lawyers in Miami with Ronny's experience in entertainment law and global relationships in TV, film and music.

Born and raised in Miami, Ronny earned his BBA in entrepreneurship at the University of Miami. He lives in Miami with his wife, Laura, and their one year old son, Josh.