Nely Galán -- The Fearless One

Latino Leaders
BY SOLL SUSSMAN
July, 2005

As Nely Galán moves back and forth between producing projects for English- language and Spanish- language networks, she notices that being a woman in the entertainment industry has a very different impact.

"My being a woman has been a complete asset in the American English market. In the Hispanic world, it has been a bitch," she says. "Latin men don't like me; in the English world, I'm an exotic fish."
The 41-year-old president of Galán Entertainment has been making waves at least since Catholic high school in New Jersey, when she found a unique way to clear her name from nuns who had accused her of plagiarism.

"I felt like I was supposed to fight the nuns because it was unfair," she says, still able to tell the story vividly after all these years. She adds that, during her sophomore year, the nuns told her she couldn't have written a story that was more profound than what they expected from a young Latina from an immigrant family.

"I guess the way I was raised, I felt- I'm not putting up with that," she says. Sent home from school for three days, she wrote an article for Seventeen magazine about why one shouldn't send a child to an all-girls Catholic school. "I caused such a stink! Seventeen magazine offered me a guesteditorship," she recalls. "That story really marked my life."

"I never once felt like a victim or minority," Galán adds. "I felt empowered."

Nely was born in Santa Clara, Cuba, and moved with her family as a young girl, first to Spain and then to New Jersey. She says she was raised in a traditional Latino family with no expectation that she would ever become a career woman.

"I was raised to be a wife and a mother," she explains. "I really loved TV, but I never thought of it as a possibility for me."

The opportunity came after a year and a half with Seventeen, when she was offered a job as a news writer for a television show in Texas. "I moved to Austin, Texas, when I was 17," she remembers. "I'd have to say it sent me on a storytelling path. I knew that I liked storytelling, but I didn't like news."
Galán says she has viewed each step along her way as an opportunity, as a stepping-stone and a training ground. She managed a Spanish- language television station in New Jersey, briefly hosted a talk show, and then decided, while still in her 20s, to start her own company launching television stations in Latin America.

She ran the company long enough to make enough money to ensure financial independence, something she said is necessary if you intend to go into film or television production.

"Then I went to run Telemundo, which was the other missing part of my puzzle," she says. "I learned how a network thinks, how a studio thinks, and how a buyer thinks."

Galán Entertainment was ready to start producing shows in 2000. "It's sort of like the second start of my business -- only five year ago -- but I had all this background," she tells us. "It's a combination of money contacts and skills- and throw in a little luck."

Her biggest hit so far has been The Swan, the controversial makeover show for Fox, and she is preparing a third season of it for later this year. She believes that part of the reason for its success was her inclusion for Hispanic and African-American women.

She is also filming El Principe Azul (Prince Charming), a reality show for Telemundo, and is working on Ms. Mogul, another reality show for a women's network. She's working on a miniseries for HBO called Enrique's Journey, about a young Honduran's trek to find his mother in the United States, based on the Los Angeles Times' Pulitzer Prize-wining feature story, and a drama series based on Alisa Valdes- Rodriguez's best selling book: The Dirty Girls Social Club.

"I think the opportunities are endless" Galán comments.

Nely lives in Venice, California, with her five-year-old son Lukas, whose father is comedian Paul Rodriguez, and is considering establishing a second home base in San Antonio, Texas.

"Until I had my son, I didn't balance my life at all," she says. "I think I've finally figured it out. I'm a very traditional person, in spite of my unconventionality."