Marinho Family

The Marinho family is founder and owner of the vehicles that make up Grupo Globo, besides many other investments. The three brothers of the Marinho family – Roberto Irineu, João Roberto and José Roberto, sons of Roberto Marinho – are listed by Forbes magazine among the top 10 Brazillian billionaires, with around US$ 4.3 billion each.

Organizações Globo Participações S.A. and their subsidiaries (“Grupo Globo”) is a holding company owned by Família Marinho. The company owns, through their controllers and joint controllers, as main business: a group of terrestrial television broadcasters; journalism companies; internet businesses; cable TV programming businesses; magazine publishing and musical businesses making up the largest media group in Brazil. Besides their participation in Grupo Globo, they have numerous projects in educational and cultural sectors, produced for the most part, in partnerships with the government, through Fundação Roberto Marinho.

Roberto Irineu Marinho is the president of the Administration Council and executive president of Grupo Globo, a company founded in 1925 with the first publication of the newspaper O Globo. Roberto Irineu began his career at age 16 at O Globo newspaper, where he worked as typesetter, linotypist and then, reporter. In 1978 he was nominated executive vice-president of TV Globo. In 1990 he became vice-president of Grupo Globo and, since August 2002, its executive president. In 2003, after his father’s death, Roberto Marinho also became the Administration Council president. Roberto Irineu Marinho was born in 1947, is married and father of four children.

João Roberto Marinho was born in Rio de Janeiro in September 16th, 1953. He began working at O Globo in 1973, in general news. Afterwards he made a career as journalist in different editorials within the newspaper. In 1982 he became vice-president of O Globo, and, after 1985, at the same time, vice-president of Rede Globo de Televisão (a position he occupied until late 1997). In 1998 Roberto Marinho and his sons – João Roberto, Roberto Irineu and José Roberto Marinho – left their executive positions at the Grupo Globo and formed the Management Council, focused on strategic matters of the Grupo Globo. João Roberto is currently the vice-president of the Administration Council and president of the Editorial Comittee and of the Institutional Comittee of Grupo Globo. He remains the vice-president of the Associação Nacional de Jornais (National Newspapers Association). João Roberto studied at the Instituto Souza Leão and Colégio Andrews and at the Economics Faculty at the Universidade Cândido Mendes. He is married and father of three children.

José Roberto Marinho is the vice-president of Grupo Globo and president of the Fundação Roberto Marinho. José Roberto Marinho was born in Rio de Janeiro in December 26th, 1955. He studied History at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) and Geography at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He began his professional career in 1972 as a reporter for O Globo newspaper. In 1981 he became assistant-editor. In May, 1983 he was designated the Pressroom’s subchief, where he remained until may 1984. At that same year he left the newspaper to occupy the position of FM programming director for Sistema Globo de Rádio, where he later occupied the positions of general-director and vice-president. In 1992 he founded Instituto Acqua, for the preservation of hydrical resources. José Roberto presides the Social Responsibility Comittee of Grupo Globo. He is also membre of the Governance Comittee of the Jountos pelo Desenvolvimento Sustentável (Together for Sustained Development) – Comunitas, of the Consultive Council of WWF-Brasil, of the Ethos Institute for Companies and Social Responsibility, of the Fundação Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira Curator’s Council, of the CEBDS, among others. In 2006 he took part in the foundation of the Todos pela Educação (All together for Education) movement, where he is member of the Governance Council.

The media power of the Marinho family grew considerably under Roberto Marinho’s command. With his newspaper business (1925), magazines (1930s), radio (1944) and TV, despite oscillations, he kept close relations with almost all presidents and state governors. He assumed a political stance in the changes that brought down Getúlio Vargas in 1945 and led to his suicide in 1954, and in the Military-Civilian Coup in 1964. In 1965 Marinho acquired more influence with the creation of TV Globo – one year after the coup and surrounded by accusations in the “Time-Life Incident”, which didn’t result in any punishment.

He became even stronger in 1966, when he bought two broadcasters in São Paulo (São Paulo state) and Recife (Pernambuco state), both alredy in operation. Afterwards began the inauguration of broadcasters in Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais state, 1968), Brasília (Distrito Federal, 1971) and Recife (Pernambuco state, 1972). The only TV concessions directly granted to the group were Rio de Janeiro’s (1957), by the Juscelino Kubitschek government, and Brasília’s (1962), by the João Goulart government, who was ousted in 1964 with the support of Marinho, who backed the dictatorship even after the democratic transition.

During the first civilian Federal Government, in 9185, he suggested José Sarney for the Ministry of Communications, and the politician Antônio Carlos Magalhães, who would later become a business partner of the Marinho family in Bahia. Later ex-president Sarney became himself a partner of Marinho with an affiliate in Maranhão. Until his death in 2003, Roberto Marinho remained influent in Brazilian politics, even though he had removed himself from the Grupo Globo’s administration since 1988. Before that he consolidated the brand Editora (1986) and witnessed the groups entrance in the cable TV business (Globosat, 1991) and in cinema (Globo Filmes, 1998). Paradoxically, he passed away at a moment of serious crisis for the holding he created. Since the late 1990s his sons – Roberto Irineu, João Roberto and José Roberto – manage the group in a more autonomous way. They try to bring together the group’s economic operations and social, cultural and educational actions, with a strong incidence on the national politics agenda. They intend thus to renew the company’s image and overcome financial limitations the sector has had to face in recent years.