By Brian Steinberg
Advertising Age

If you worked for NBCUniversal in its ratings heyday, you might want to consider a job at Univision.

The Spanish-language broadcaster, whose CEO, Randy Falco, previously served as second in command at NBCUniversal, has enlisted NBCUniversal’s former head of cable ad sales, Steve Mandala, as exec VP of ad sales.

Earlier in his career Mr. Mandala worked for Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo; he will now oversee direct-response sales, sports sales and broader client-development duties for Univision. Most recently he worked as exec VP of cable entertainment ad sales at NBCUniversal, though he had to report to other executives, Dave Cassaro and subsequently Linda Yaccarino, once Comcast bought a majority interest in the company and started putting its people in place. He departed NBC earlier this year after Ms. Yaccarino was named to oversee cable ad sales there.

Mr. Mandala is assuming some duties formerly handled by Lisa McCarthy, a veteran executive who has been overseeing client development at Univision and once supervised cross-media sales at the combined Viacom and CBS. Ms. McCarthy is leaving to start her own consultancy, Univision said.

Univision has been reorganizing its ad-sales efforts. In August, the company recruited Keith Turner, a longtime associate of Mr. Falco, as president of sales and marketing. Before joining Univision, Mr. Turner had worked at NBCUniversal for more than 20 years; more recently he held a post at the NFL. David Lawenda, who led Univision’s ad sales efforts through the most recent upfront, left the company when Mr. Turner was hired.