Cablefax The Magazine - September 2012 - 28

The Influentials
Jatin Desai
CTO, itaas Inc.
The mild-mannered
Desai is the brains
beyond itaas, especially
in the arena of
software development
and testing. With Jatin commanding
the ship, itaas has opened
its fourth engineering, testing and
integration center, equipped with the
cutting-edge technology required for
creating products and solutions for
the industry. What's driven him since
founding itaas with Vibha Rustagi and
Jaspal Bhasin in 1999 has been " the
innate desire to look at how things are
connected and affect each other in a
larger context, " he says.
Marty
Dominguez
VP, Marketing,
C-SPAN
What's kept this
23-year veteran of
C-SPAN busy lately? A
full-ledged marketing campaign she
designed for this year's political conventions
and coverage of the political
cycle, dubbed " C-SPAN Campaign
2012. " Dominguez calls the two weeks
leading up to the conventions the net's
" Olympics. " C-SPAN's convention
presence materialized on billboards,
taxi tops, airport dioramas, print and
web ads-and so much more. Meanwhile,
Dominguez names her mom as
her greatest mentor. " She instilled in
me a great sense of quiet, inner conidence
and demonstrated through her
daily actions how to organize, manage,
and inspire, " she says.
Cheryl Dorsey
VP, Distribution
The Africa Channel
With 15 million subs
under The Africa Channel's
belt in the U.S.
and abroad, Dorsey
continues to ight hard every day to
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grow this indie net. But she also gives
back, overseeing NAMIC's Mentor
Starwatch program and is active in the
USC Black Alumni Mentor program. In
this tough economy, she recommends
that graduates " apply for a non-paid
internships at ive of their 'Dream'
companies. It is easier to get your
foot in the door as a volunteer versus
seeking full-time employment. "
Trisha Espinoza
VP, Program Planning,
Scheduling &
Acquisitions,
Oxygen Media
NBCUniversal
Espinoza oversees
program planning and acquisition
strategy for Oxygen. And having
placed more than 400 hours of original
content on the net in two years, she's
been integral to acquiring hits like
" Glee, " " Best Ink " and " Bad Girls
Club. " Espinoza's community involvement
includes working over the last
10 years with the IRTS Foundation's
Minority Career Workshop where she
often speaks to minority students at
job fairs and training sessions. She
counts her irst internship, at " The
Sally Jesse Raphael Show, " as the
most useful experience in her career.
Jessica Fang
VP, Distribution
Fox Networks
Fang has been a key
part of negotiations for
some of Fox Networks'
most complex deals
with MSO partners and with all aspects
of Fox's distribution efforts. She
recalls advice she got early on in her
career, offered up by GM of Mobile at
NFL Network Manish Jha (then working
at ESPN) at a panel during a NAMIC
conference. Jha said a supervisor
once told him that no matter how
small the task, always do your best
and take pride. " I remember how this
simple piece of advice inspired me to
September 2012
work a little harder and do a little better
than I had been, " says Fang. " And
I've followed it to this day. "
Rafael Gomez
VP, Business Affairs
NBCUniversal Cable
Entertainment and
Cable Studios
As NBCUniversal
Cable's hard-line
negotiator, Gomez is charged with
scoring the best deals possible for the
company's cable nets and studios. He
led negotiations for Syfy's " Alphas "
and " Hollywood Treasure, " and USA's
" Royal Pains " -to name a few of his
recent successes. Rafael says his
best mentor is his father. " He taught
me to reach for the stars and persevere
to the end, while still living by
the principles of integrity, fairness and
compassion. " Diversity matters, he
says, because we're " a diverse amalgamation
of people and cultures...
Unless we can create programming
that addresses that diversity, we will
not survive in the long run. "
Maureen
Guthman
SVP, Programming
Strategy &
Acquisitions
TV One
Her years of experience
with oversight of acquisitions
and co-productions for MTV Networks,
including the launch of Logo,
have informed Guthman's current
programming strategy at TV One.
Recently, she wrapped up a deal to
acquire the Warner Bros. series " Hawthorne "
as well the much-loved drama
" Soul Food, " and redesigned the network's
lineup to follow a more intuitive
approach. Guthman's tenacity, vision
and seasoned relationships with
distributors have been instrumental in
landing popular projects, despite the
network's smaller size vs. some other
big-network competitors.
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