Nely Galan

Received a Master in clinical psychology [Interview on "The View" on July 11, 2013].

Her show, The Swan (2004) provides cosmetic surgery to self-described "ugly duckings" to help them boost their self esteem. Galan has never had cosmetic surgery but isn't against it for herself, if she should ever decide to do so.

She and Paul Rodriguez have a son Lucas who was born in 2000.

Besides her own company, by 1999 at the young age of 36, Nely was President of Entertainment for Telemundo, the international Spanish-language network. Among her many accomplishments is producing the series of comedy specials called "Loco Slam" in the early '90s and later the "Bravo Awards," which honors achievements of Latinos in entertainment, and helping create and launch the Fox Latin American Channel, the Fox Kids Network in Latin America, and Fox Sports Américas. Nely recently received the National Hispanic Leadership Fellowship from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Nely founded GaLAn Entertainment in 1994 of which she is president and CEO. GaLAn is a Venice California based production and marketing firm which focuses on creating "crossover" Latino programming for prime-time.

Wrote an article for Seventeen magazine entitled, "Who Says Christie Brinkley is Beautiful?" It questioned the notions that only blond hair and blue eyes are beautiful which at the time, in the 1970s, was the general idea. However, years later, Galan's TV show The Swan (2004) did lighten or bleach a few of its contestants' hair to make them "beautiful" but this was done because the contestant herself requested it; being blond or blonder is what the contestant felt was best for her own concept of beauty.

As a child, her favorite TV shows were The Brady Bunch (1969) and The Partridge Family (1970).

Nely Galán was born Arnely Alvarez in Santa Clara in Cuba's central province (the last name Galán comes from the husband she married and divorced as a young woman. ) Her parents moved to Teaneck, NJ in 1965 when she was 2 years old which became home. During high school Nely submitted an article to Seventeen magazine which was so impressive she was asked to be a guest editor and this eventually led to a permanent position. By 22, she was the youngest radio station manager in the US, managing the Spanish language WNJU channel 47. Later, while working at Time Warner and HBO, she co-developed the production company Tropix geared to putting Latino actors in the public eye.