• by Wayne Friedman , September 5, 2007

The new-looking Univision Communications now has a new advertising sales chief: MTV veteran David Lawenda.

Lawenda will take on a new position--president of advertising sales--responsible for Univision's entire range of media assets, from the Univision, Telefutura and Galavision TV networks to radio and online platforms.

In a separate announcement, longtime co-presidents of advertising sales--Dennis McCauley and Tom McGarrity--have left the company.

Most of Univision's advertising sales executives under McCauley and McGarrity will stay with the company and report to Lawenda. This includes Judy Kenny, executive vice president of sales for the Univision Network; Carlos Deschapelles, senior vice president of sales for the TeleFutura Network, and David Grossman, vice president of sales for the Galavision Network.

The news comes as Joe Uva, the CEO of Univision Communications, continues to make changes in the wake of Univision's sale last spring to a group of investors led by Haim Saban for $12.3 billion.

Jessica Pantanini, COO of leading Hispanic agency Bromley Communications, said she wasn't surprised by the turnover. Uva had made it clear "he has a different vision" for sales and that "the approach would be more consumer-knowledge based."

Pantanini said Univision's past emphasis has been more on price and volume negotiations versus crafting innovative, integrated multi-touchpoint plans.

There "was more focus on numbers and so there wasn't a lot of creativity when it came to working with clients ... it's a different way of approaching the marketplace," she added.

Lawenda was most recently senior vice president of advertising sales at MTV Networks, responsible for VH1, VH1 Classic, VH1 Soul, Logo and The N. Before that, he was instrumental in launching Spike TV, another MTV network, from the remains of the TNN network.

Earlier, he served as senior vice president and general sales manager at Paramount Advertiser Services, the syndication ad sales division of Paramount Domestic Television. He also held posts as UPN and Turner Broadcasting.

-David Goetzl contributed to this story.