Kalian family

The Kalian family, a prominent family in Belhavian business, media, society, and politics, and other professions, is most known for being the founders and owners of a sprawling transnational and Belhavian media empire, the Kalian Media Group, and as being powerful social elites in both Belhavia and, increasingly, throughout the rest of the world.

Notable Members

Allan Kalian, c. 1954, at the founding of Kalian Radio Holding Company.

Allan Kalian (b. 1899 - d. 1984) - The deceased former family patriarch who founded the Kalian family and media empire. Born at the turn of the century, he was raised in a struggling lower-middle-income religious Jewish family in the industrial quarter of early-20th century Freeport City, Freeport, Belhavia.

The elder Kalian was one of thirteen children, whose father was a pulpit rabbi at an impoverished Chareidi synagogue serving the local kollel and religious working Jewish laborers at nearby factories. Never comfortable living with little means and squeezed into tiny quarters with little privacy, Allan immediately started informal odd-jobs and entrepreneurial efforts with neighborhood kids by his teenage years.

Falling to the bottom of his class at yeshiva and demonstrating little interest in learning Torah and Talmud, when he asked his father to let him study at the City College of Business in Dakos, his father refused. Allan left anyways, and his father disowned him. Catching the eye of a minor Dakos industrialist, Allan received his patronage and was able to attend school there and received a bachelors degree in business management and went to work in communications, largely focused in radio in the 1920s.

After years of trying to conceive a child with his wife, Chava, his first son Saul was born in 1941. By the early 1950s, Allan had become accomplished enough in his own right to start his own communications firm, a radio company in 1954. Three years later, this became involved in the growing television market.

Kalian Radio Holding Company became Kalian Media Properties, Limited in 1963. In 1969, he became involved in buying bankrupt or struggling newspapers, owning 17 newspapers, large and small, by his death. In the late 1970s, he reorganized the family business into two groups, Kalian Newspaper Group and Kalian Media Holding Company. The latter invested in the emerging cable television markets.

When he passed in 1984, his combined businesses were worth $423 million shekels.

Saul Kalian, President and CEO of Kalian Media Group, c. 2011.

Saul Kalian (born 1941) - The current family patriarch, oldest son of Allan Kalian, and the reigning President and CEO of Kalian Media Group. Picking off where his father left off, in the mid 1980s, Saul grew the family media empire into skyrocketing cable TV networks as well as new media markets being privatized across the world due to the Neoliberal Revolution.

Saul was the "reluctant heir"; interested in Torah study, he nonetheless was impressed into service by his father Allan into the family business. Relying on his own negative experiences with his own father (Saul's grandfather), Allan tolerated Saul's studies but insisted he attended college and business graduate school after spending two years learning in yeshiva in Canaan. A dutiful son, Saul complied.

By the late 1970s, his father began to give Saul more and more power and control in the media companies under family control, and he followed his father's lead in following new forms of growing media while also investing in profitable existing media forms like radio and newspapers.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Saul led the family business' rapid expansion overseas, and into new telecommunications and New Media platforms such as the Internet and digital media.

He is married to Miriam (neé Perlmann) since 1963, and has four children: Devorah (b. 1975), Rivka (b. 1975), Solomon (b. 1979), and Yitzchak "Yitzy" (b. 1981).

Devorah Kalian, c. 2015.

Devorah Kalian (born 1975) - The Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of KMG and the first of a pair of twin daughters of Saul Kalian. She, along with her sister Rivka, are nicknamed the "Iron Twins" due to their strong-willed, ambitious, and work-oriented personalities despite being devoutly-religious Orthodox Jewish women.

After studying in a religious woman's seminary in Dakos, she attended college and business school. She worked at Roth Industries' media division for five years, where she developed a reputation as a female shark belied by her religious externals.

In 1995, while at Roth, several employees complained to higher management about her style of governance, describing it as "authoritarian, oppressive, and cruel." In response, she successfully brought them to court for libel and slander and won, winning an undisclosed restitution. She soon after left Roth for the family business, serving as a Director on the Board. Determined, focused, unrelenting, and a self-described perfectionist, she worked to push through business strategies and visions, often times against the majority of the Board.

In 2007, her father Saul appointed her as Chairwoman of the Board of the Directors, the first in Belhavian corporate history. She is married to Yonoson (neé Goldenblatt), and has three children: Jessie (age 18), Amy (age 16), and Ruth (age 9).

Rivka and Liam at their wedding, c. 2003.

Rivka Kalian (born 1975) and Liam Stryker (born 1980) - The second-half of the "Iron Twins" and her husband. Rivka is the most modern-looking of her religious family, and skipped further religious study after finishing high school. She went to Almania College and the Imperial Provisa University School of Business. While in business school, she met Liam Stryker, a law student and fellow graduate student. She ended up in the top ten in her class.

She married Liam in 2003. She was made chief financial officer of KMG in 2004 after the company's unification and reorganization. Despite her modest dress and looks, she, like her sister Devorah, quickly developed a reputation as cutthroat and ambitious, and quickly moved up the corporate ladder.

Liam Stryker came from a formerly religious yeshivish family, eventually becoming a baal teshuva and returning to religious observance. After several years of yeshiva study, he went to law school at Imperial Provisa University School of Law. After several years in KMG's legal department, he was promoted to the company's General Counsel position in 2008.

They have six children: Sarah (age 12), Norm (age 11), Aryeh (age 9), Chani (age 9), Yehudis (age 6), and Dovid (age 2).

Solomon "Shlomo" Kalian, c. 2014.

Solomon Kalian (born 1979) - The oldest son and third child of Saul Kalian, Solomon (who uses his Yiddish formulation Shlomo) is the current editor-in-chief of The Provisa Times. Unlike his sisters, and in commonality with his father, Saul, Shlomo dislikes the corporate world and reluctantly was appointed to the editor post by his father at his sister Devorah's suggestion to ensure the family had sufficient control over the newspaper's operations.

Of his family, he is the most Chareidi and only works part of the day, learning Jewish religious texts with other married men in the mornings. Growing up, he was usually the more serious and sober-minded of his siblings, focusing on academic and intellectual pursuits. He has, however, taken an interest in politics, both at home and abroad.

He married Sarah (neé Weiss) in 2002 and has four children: Azriel (age 14), Asher (age 12), Rina (age 11), and Yehudis (age 6).

Yitzchak "Yitzy" Kalian, c. 2009.

Yitzchak Kalian (born 1981) - The youngst son and fourth child of Saul Kalian, Yitzchak is the current editor-in-chief of The International Financial Insider. Unlike his brother, Schlomo, Yitzy is an ambitious corporate actor like his sisters Devorah and Rivka, and pushed to have his father appoint him to the editor post of the IFI to raise his global profile.

He attended Imperial Provisa University School of Business and graduated in the top 5% of his class. He is a self-styled "media entrepreneur."

His views have sparked controversy in recent years: he stated at a 2008 academic forum on global media that "it should be desirable that our media organizations be controlled centrally by a group of select competent media families to ensure stability and continuity," which produced a public outcry denouncing his remarks as "elitist" and "oligarchic", and even "anti-free market." He later backtracked and apologized. In 2010, amid a harsh "expose" against his sisters, Yitzchak denounced Fate, saying that "these thugs will get it now...my family's empire will dig these tabloid reporters' graves." The comments were widely ridiculed in the Aisling press as the "arrogant rant of a spoiled rich Belhavian brat."

He is known for his clientage of Rodarian fashion company Strada. He married Nechama (neé Rothman) in 2006 and has three children: Allan (age 9), Gershon (age 7), and Shmuel (age 3).