Nely Galan

Nely Galán is a quintessential maker: She is a Latina media mogul, an entrepreneur, a
teacher, a speaker, an Emmy Award winning producer, and an advocate for gender
parity. Above all, she is SELF MADE. Dubbed the “Tropical Tycoon” by The New York
Times Magazine, Galán is one of the entertainment industry’s savviest influencers.
Galán, a Cuban immigrant, worked her way up to become the first female president of a
U.S. television network (Telemundo). Throughout her career Galán produced over 700
episodes of television in English and Spanish. Galán was also the first Latina ever to
appear on “Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump” on NBC—showing on national
television that a multi-cultural woman’s place is in the boardroom. After becoming selfmade
on her own terms, Galán has made it her mission to teach women—regardless of
age or background—how they too can become entrepreneurs. Her forthcoming book,
SELF MADE: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way, will be
published by Spiegel & Grau/Random House in April 2016. Inspired by the new
revolution in women’s entrepreneurship led by multicultural women, Galán wrote the
book as a manifesto to ignite the SELF MADE movement, uniting all women on a quest
for an economic future they control. SELF MADE is a blueprint and a mindset, but most
of all it is a call to rise up and take ownership in ways big and small.
You do not have to look up they ladder to find the self-made woman—you simply have
to look around. She is everywhere. From the part-time Lyft driver, to the Etsy store
owner, to the unrelenting startup CEO, the one thing all of these women have in
common is that they are becoming self-made. SELF MADE is for every woman with
untapped greatness in her, who just needs the tools to get started.
Galán is also the founder of the nonprofit The Adelante Movement (“Move it forward!” in
Spanish), which kicked off in 2012 and seeks to train and empower Latinas to become
entrepreneurs. Soon, not just Latinas, but women of all backgrounds began showing up
to her events, a clear signal to Galán that all women, and particularly multicultural
women, were leading a new economic women’s movement. The revolution around
financial self-reliance had already begun. The SELF MADE book is the culmination of
nearly four years on the road meeting and training women, who have collectively
become the largest growth engine in the country.