Nimrod Kovacs

Nimrod Kovacs (born October 27, 1949) after finishing his Masters, started out as an Ad Man on Madison Avenue, continued on as a Cable Guy in Denver, worked around the world setting up and managing Cable, Media and Telecom businesses, till retiring to his native city of Budapest. Now, he spends his time as an investor, philanthropist and a nature loving Wine Guy.

Early life and Education

Nimrod Kovacs (born October 27, 1949, in Budapest, Hungary) after finishing high school and waiter school, escaped from his native Hungary via swimming from the current day Slovenia to Italy in 1971. After spending months in various refugee camps in Italy, he arrived in the USA in 1972. He started his new life as a dishwasher at a hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from where he was elevated to become a waiter. After moving to Colorado, while supporting himself as a waiter, he learnt enough English, to enroll in college (University of Colorado) from where he graduated with a BS degree in 1976. After graduation, he moved to the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Phoenix, Arizona from where he received a Masters of International Management degree. He also spent a summer in 1987 at Stanford Business school to learn AbOUT successful organizations.

Career

From Phoenix, Arizona he moved to New York City to join Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency in September 1977, where he worked on the American Airlines and Hershey Foods account. In 1979 Nimrod joined Grey Advertising where he worked on the General Foods business, followed by a stint at Wells Rich and Greene where he worked on the Ralston, Alka Selzer and the New York State businesses.

In 1982, Kovacs moved to Colorado to become the Marketing director for United Cable Television Corporation from where he was quickly promoted to head the Marketing and Programming department. During this time, he had the opportunity to help develop several TV channels including The Discovery Channel, E entertainment and QVC. Upon the sale of United to Tele-Communications Inc., Nimrod became a partner with the Schneiders in United International Holdings Inc. (UIH) and together focused on cable TV greenfield investments, mostly in Europe. One of these investments was a joint venture between UIH, Time Warner and US West, called Kabelkom, which developed modern cable systems in Hungary while introducing HBO and Spektrum TV. Nimrod then was actively involved in the formation of another joint venture with Phillips called UPC. This company, under Nimrod's leadership became the largest Cable TV operation in Central and Eastern Europe with 3 million customers encompassing Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Romania. Aside from his corporate responsibilities Nimrod has been a founding Board member of CTAM (Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing) which he also brought to Europe. In 2009 Nimrod retired from the corporate world focusing on his long time passion, wines and now managing his winery in Eger, Hungary.

Personal life

Nimrod Kovacs aside from wines and food, enjoys collecting art, including 19th century Hungarian paintings and 20th century international and Hungarian artifacts. He likes to stay active and is also involved in a number of charities and spiritual groups including the World Servers Foundation. In 2005 he became a Knight of Hungary. Nimrod has 3 children: Tash, Briana and Hunter.