Don Browne, president of Telemundo and founder of Women of Tomorrow, dies at 80

When Jennifer Valoppi first started at WTVJ, General Manager Don Browne showed up to a staff meeting with stuffed-animal dogs wearing T-shirts that read: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

It was his father’s favorite motto, and he took it as his own.

The station was heading into its ratings period ranked as a “distant number three,” Valoppi said, but when Browne handed out the plush dogs, he told the staff: “Now we’re gonna win.”

And they did.

Browne, who died at age 80 at his Miami Beach home on Aug. 30 of complications from brain cancer, always thought of himself as an underdog. Even after reaching some of the highest roles at NBC News and Telemundo, Browne prided himself on being a small dog with a whole lot of fight in him.

Early life

Browne grew up in Toms River, a New Jersey township on the edge of the Pine Barrens. The son of a boat builder, Browne made money selling sodas to construction workers, shoveling chicken manure and joining construction projects himself. The home he grew up in was a converted duck coop.

His athletic ability earned Browne a scholarship to the University of South Carolina, where he played football and ran track. He ended up leaving school to join the U.S. Coast Guard, and then found a lucky break into the TV news world.

Using a connection from a construction foreman he had once worked for, Browne was offered an entry-level newsroom job with CBS News in New York. He spent his days carting reels of film.

In 1974, Browne transferred to CBS News in Atlanta, which changed his life for two reasons.

First, it allowed him to cover important stories like Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign and Elvis Presley’s death. But more importantly, Atlanta was where he met his wife, Maria, a beauty queen, bank executive and philanthropist.

Rising in the news business

In 1979, Browne left his job at CBS to take over as Miami bureau chief for NBC News. Under his leadership, the Miami bureau covered the Falkland Islands crisis, El Salvador’s civil war, and the Mariel boatlift from Cuba to Florida.

As he covered Latin America, Browne began to advocate for a Spanish-language network, and worked with a group of Hispanic journalists who were working toward that goal. Eventually, that group went on to create Telemundo.

In 1991, Browne became executive vice president of NBC News in New York. It was in this role, says Browne’s son Christopher, that Browne got his biggest scoop as a journalist. He took a chance and sent a team of journalists to Berlin, who ended up transmitting the first English-language broadcast of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

That coverage, said Christopher Browne, “resonated throughout the world, but particularly in South Florida, where so many people were affected by communism and its legacy. I think he considers that the biggest story of his career because it impacted not only the community that he called home, but the rest of the world as well.”

In 1993, Browne went on to become the general manager of WTVJ in Miami. He also played a key role in NBC’s acquisition of Telemundo in 2001, and shortly after joined the Telemundo leadership team. In 2005, he was named president of Telemundo.

As president, Browne focused on pushing Telemundo to create original content. Under his leadership, the network went from zero original programming to more than 1,000 hours of original productions.

Mentorship and Women of Tomorrow

While Browne was rising through the ranks of NBC, he was also focused on mentoring young people, specifically young women and people of color. It was a goal shared by his wife, Maria, and the two were partners in their mentorship efforts.

Christopher Browne says that his parents “were unlikely successes.” Don came from poverty in Pine Barrens and Maria was a Cuban immigrant. “Each of them really found their way in their respective businesses and careers, and I think they wanted to give back to one person at a time,” Christopher Browne said.

Maria “saw so much of herself in these young, talented and ambitious female journalists” that Don worked with, and the two co-mentored many young women and people of color, Christopher said.

Soon, the couple’s informal mentorship efforts would take on a new form in the Women of Tomorrow organization.

In 1994, Browne recruited a colleague from his New York days, Jennifer Valoppi, to come to Miami and work as a lead news anchor at WTVJ, which started out as Channel 4 and became Channel 6 in 1995. She recalls pitching him an idea for a mentorship and scholarship organization that would support young women.

“I pitched him on the idea because I knew that he had always been such a huge supporter of women and minorities in the workplace,” Valoppi said. “He loved the idea, he threw the weight of the television station behind it, and we had Women of Tomorrow and kind of never looked back.”

In 1997, while still working at WTVJ, Browne and Valoppi officially founded Women of Tomorrow with the goal of supporting disadvantaged young women with scholarships, mentorship and professional development. Maria quickly became instrumental as both a mentor and organizer, setting up galas behind the scenes.

Valoppi is the president and founder of Women of Tomorrow. Browne was the organization’s co-founder and vice president.

“That was the power of Don,” Valoppi said. “He saw things in ways that other people didn’t. He saw the possibilities where other people didn’t.”

Survivors and scholarships

Browne is survived by his sons, Christopher and Ryan, Christopher’s wife Julie, and their two young children, Adelia and Milo. Maria died at 71 in 2021.

The family plans to hold a private celebration of life soon for Don Browne.

Two scholarships will be set up in Browne’s name. Women of Tomorrow is establishing a scholarship, as is the University of South Carolina School of Journalism.