The SuperLatina Gaby Natale

Gaby Natale is an entrepreneur, media personality and celebrity blogger. As host of SuperLatina talk show, she has been nominated six times to the EMMY award.

Natale is also the co-founder and President of AGANARmedia, a content development and grassroots marketing company with a focus on Hispanic audiences. AGANARmedia’s clients include Fortune 500 companies such as Ford Motor Co., AT&T, L’Oreal Paris, Macy’s, Ebay, Direct Energy and MetroPCS.

Gaby Natale is one of the few women in the entertainment industry who not only owns the rights to her television show, but also a television studio. This unique situation has allowed her to combine her passion for media with her entrepreneurial spirit. With a growing pace of one million hits per month Natale is currently at 25 million views on Youtube.

Our editor, Mavian Arocha-Rowe recently caught up with Gaby Natale, and here is what she had to say:

Q: Where you born in the states?
A: I was born in Argentina in the city of La Plata. In terms of education, my first steps were taken all in the same place. I did my kinder, elementary school and high school in an all-girls catholic school called Nuestra Señora de la Misericordia. I had really good grades and didn’t get in trouble. I can honestly say my time there was really pleasant and I made friends that I have kept even to this day.

Looking back, I realize it might have been there where I started to become a fan of women and the communities they create when they are together.

It was a very friendly place but the room for individual expression was limited: I had a uniform and I had to dress in navy blue every day for 14 years. No makeup or nail polish was allowed. We all had our hair up either in a chignon or pony tail. As we became teenagers, the length of the uniform’s skirt was measured; no miniskirts were allowed at school.

I believe having to comply with all those rules for so many years probably made me more aware of my need to express my individuality. A fact, no one will ever find a navy blue piece of clothes in my closet.

Q: Was hope alive during your childhood years?
A: Yes, I had a wonderful childhood! My parents are both lawyers and they went above and beyond so my brothers and I could have a good education and also the chance to travel and be able to see the world.

They always said: “You can lose everything in life, your money, your job, your house…but an education is something nobody can take away from you.” And they were right. When I came to the United Stated and had to start from the ground up, that education was all I had.

Q: How did you dream when you were a child and do your dreams differ now as an adult?
A: When I turned 15 something happened that changed my perception of the world forever.

My parents gave me the choice between a big Quinceañera party or a trip. Since I was more of a tomboy and I didn’t envision myself in a big dress or surrounded by flowers dancing a waltz, I chose the trip.

It ended up being an educational trip to England with other kids who were about my age. The whole purpose of the trip was to improve my English and study UK’s history…but I learned so much more than that.

I realized there was so much diversity than what I saw in Argentina. The city, the people, the food…everything was so different and from that moment on I became “hungry” for life and experiences. I didn’t know it back then…but the voracity to learn about new worlds and experiences made me passionate about journalism later in life.

Q: What is SuperLatina?
A: SuperLatina started in 2007 after I finally got my Green Card. It took me many years and three applications to finally get the petition approved so my husband and I thought really hard about what we REALLY wanted to do now that we had the freedom to choose (before that I was working using an employer sponsored visa).

My husband worked at a CBS affiliate and I was a news anchor for Univision in Texas. Quitting a job that is so hard to get like a news anchor seemed crazy at the time. But we really wanted to have creative and editorial control over what we produced and I felt that coming from Argentina to the United States with no money and no connections was riskier than the step I was about to take.

So I started pitching the concept of the show to different TV stations using a Power Point (I had absolutely no idea I needed to have a pilot episode). Fortunately, one general manager said he was interested as long as we delivered the finished show.

The next step was getting the funding to buy the equipment. We didn’t have a credit history in the United States so four banks turned us down before we could get the initial $20,000 we needed to buy the equipment (a camera, a tripod, microphones, a computer, lights, edit software, monitors and wood to build a TV set).

Slowly, we started learning more. We got involved with sales and got sponsors. We got involved with distribution and syndication and the show started airing in more cities. Telemundo in Lubbock and New Mexico picked up the show for their lineup and by 2009 we moved to Dallas-Fort Worth. Today, our office and studio is here.

Since its initial launch in 2007, the show has entertained audiences and empowered viewers to pursue their dreams through community-wide efforts that range from student scholarships to celebrity meet and greets. Throughout these years we started to create some buzz. We received six EMMY nominations and 25 million views on YouTube. At that point we realized the show could be enjoyed by a broader audience and that it made a lot of sense to look for network distribution. Vme, the Spanish-language PBS came on board and last week the show debuted nationally reaching 43 markets across the United States including Puerto Rico.

AGANARmedia is our content development and marketing company. It started about five years ago when some of our TV show’s sponsors asked us to develop campaigns for them targeting Hispanics. We produce branded entertainment to social media to experiential/grassroots marketing. Our clients include MetroPCS, Ebay, Ford Motor Co. and Procter & Gamble, among others.

Q: Is there a specific person or persons who helped pave your current walk?
A: Growing up, my parent’s big effort to pay for the best education that was available in my country was fundamental for me as the necessary tools to start from scratch in the United States. They also helped me pay for most of the immigration and legal fees which were very expensive considering, I not only paid for my work visa, but also had to apply three times until I received my Green Card. Currently I’m a United States citizen.

Other than my parents, my husband has been my rock. We met in 2001 when we were studying for our Master’s Degree in journalism and we stayed happily together ever since. When I first arrived in America we spent 13 months apart, visiting each other only every three months since he was taking a postgraduate course in London with a scholarship from the British Council.

Because we not only share our lives but also our business, our relationship is truly 24/7. Working with your significant other can be very intense! Problems from home can be taken to the office and office problems can be taken home without even realizing. Yet to share every step of the way, every hope, disappointment, dream, business plan, late nights of work, every deal that is closed and almost every business trip with him makes me feel we are very lucky. When you are very passionate about what you do, you dedicate a lot of time to it… and I can do it without having to choose between work and family.

Also, our personalities complement each other. I’m very outgoing and go by my intuition, he’s more low key and very analytical. I’m always scared when it comes to expanding. He’s always the one who is pushing and reminding me we need to keep reinvesting and raising the bar more and more to get to the next level.

Q: Have you reached your life’s purpose? If so how, if not, what should we look forward to and when?
A: I still feel I’m very far from reaching my life purpose, my biggest goals and developing my full potential.

It took me seven years to have my national show. When I started my show and set that goal for myself I was in Midland-Odessa which is market 152 according to Nielsen’s ranking. The goal was so far away from where I started that it seemed almost impossible to achieve. When we made national I bought myself a ring to mark the occasion and remind myself on bad days that even things that seem almost impossible can be achieved.

Other than my professional goals, in the future, I would like to become an advocate for adoption. I’m not a mom yet, but I would love to have both biological and adoptive kids. I’m convinced that adoption is the single most effective individual decision that a person can make to change the world for the better.

Q:  What song describes your life?
A: Gipsy by Shakira