Jerry Grafstein - Business Career

Business Career

Grafstein has had wide-ranging legal and business experience in all aspects of media, including television, cable, radio, telephony, telecommunications microwave, high speed wireless data transmission, advertising, production, distribution, publishing and financing.

From 1979 to 1984 he served on the Board of Petro-Canada, was a Member of the Northwest Territorial Bar, and served as Counsel to Northwest Territorial Airlines for almost a decade. During that period he travelled across the far north extensively.

He was a co-founder of a range of media companies, especially broadcasting/communications/ publication enterprises, including: CUC Broadcasting Limited (Canada's fifth largest cable MSO before it was acquired by Shaw Communications in 1995, now Canada's second largest cable MSO); national specialty TV channels in lifestyle, youth (YTV) and music; CityTV (Canada's first independent UHF station); MTV-Multilingual Television (Toronto) (Canada's first independent multilingual broadcasting station – now OMNI TV); CUC Cablevision (UK) Limited (Telecential) (now part of one of the United Kingdom's larger cable MSOs); Northern Communications, a Northern Ontario Company, comprised of cable, TV (CBC and CTV) and radio stations – French and English; he co-founded one of the longest private microwave companies in Canada that ran from Windsor to Toronto to mid-Northern Ontario; Canbras Communications Corp. (now part of Brazil’s third largest cable MSO); and Multivision Communications Corp. (Bolivia's largest MMDS and cable MSO). He served on the Board of Ukraine Enterprise Corporation which made early investments in Ukraine.

He was also a lead director of Toronto Life Publishing Company Limited which published Toronto Life (after it merged with Toronto Calendar) and Toronto Life Fashion, two of Canada's leading lifestyle and fashion magazines, and co-founded Toronto Life Fashion File now seen on television around the world.

In addition, he has served as a Governor of the Canadian Opera Company and, for over a decade, was Chairman and Board Member of the O'Keefe Centre (now “Sony Centre for The Performing Arts”) Canada's largest public performing arts centre, for a decade. He has served on the Board of the Shaw Festival (Canada's leading theatrical festival dedicated to the works of George Bernard Shaw and his contemporary playwrights), the Planning Committee of the Stratford Festival (Canada's leading theatrical festival dedicated to the plays of William Shakespeare), the Festival of Festivals, now the Toronto International Film Festival (Canada's and the World’s leading annual Film Festival). He has served as Chairman of the City of Toronto Asia/Pacific Committee and Vice-Chairman of the Toronto-Chongqing Association and Toronto-Frankfurt Friendship Association.

In 2011 and 2012, he co-founded and currently serves as Chair of The Wellington Street Post (http://www.wellingtonpost.com), Ottawa, Canada, The Penn Ave Post (http://www.pennavepost.com), Washington, D.C., and The Holly Post (http://www.hollypost.com), Hollywood, California, in an expanding network of online 24/7 news sites around the globe.. He will also launch The China News Cloud (http://www.chinanewscloud.com) in September-October 2012. Other internet news sites are works in progress.

These news sites use innovative technology to bring together the diversity of the blogosphere and social networks into coherent, timely and high-quality news and information coverage of political news from Ottawa and Washington, and entertainment news from Hollywood. The China News Cloud (http://www.chinanewscloud.com) will provide a comprehensive coverage of mainland China and regions with sizeable Chinese populations outside China.

Mr. Grafstein continues to be actively engaged in business start-ups and municipal, provincial, national and international affairs, charitable, educational and cultural institutions, and serves on private and public Corporate boards.