Conde is a corporate climber, sporting a Harvard B.A. and an MBA from the Wharton School of Finance, having been head of Univision before becoming chairman of Telemundo (owned by NBC-Universal) and then moving to his current job. He has no background in the news business himself.
After just over a month in his new job as head of the newly formed NBC-Universal News Group, combining NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, and all streaming operations, Cesar Conde is making news himself. In a video and memo to the approximately 3,000 employees he supervises, Conde announced a goal of 50% of employees being female and 50% “people of color,” an expression commonly taken to mean non-Caucasians.
Since Caucasians account for more than 76% of the United States population according to the Census Bureau, this amounts to a vow of racial discrimination.
Ben Smith of the New York Times tweets out the memo:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">New memo from NBC News chief <a href="https://twitter.com/cesarconde_?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@cesarconde_</a> sets a goal for representation: "that 50% of our News organization employees be women and 50% of our total workforce be people of color." <a href="https://t.co/s3B5KmHz7Z">pic.twitter.com/s3B5KmHz7Z</a></p>— Ben Smith (@benyt) <a href="https://twitter.com/benyt/status/1280592750224736256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 7, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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