Heir to Venezuela TV Empire Drops Soap Operas for Satellites

Adriana Cisneros has been obsessed with satellites ever since she was a child in Venezuela. Now, after a decade of leading her billionaire family’s conglomerate, she’s turned that obsession into one of her biggest bets yet.

Cisneros Group, which holds assets ranging from the wildly popular Miss Venezuela pageant to a luxury resort development in the Dominican Republic, is expanding with an investment in AST SpaceMobile Inc. Founded by a fellow Venezuelan, it seeks to offer a space-based broadband cellular network from its patented satellite technology, bringing telecommunication services to rural parts of the world.