Ellis Jacob (born 1953) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

business executive who serves as the president and

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Cineplex Entertainment Cineplex Inc. (formerly Cineplex Galaxy) is a Canadian movie theatre and family entertainment centre chain headquartered in Toronto. The company was formed in 2003 via the acquisition of Loews Cineplex's Canadian operations (which included ...

. Since 1987, he has been involved in the movie theatre industry. He was the founder of Galaxy Entertainment Inc. in 1999 and has been the President and CEO of Cineplex Galaxy since November 2003. Under his leadership, he opened several movie theatres along with the expansion of arcades, restaurants and e-sports.

Early life

Jacob was born in 1953 in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

parents A parent is a caregiver of the offspring in their own species. In humans, a parent is the caretaker of a child (where "child" refers to offspring, not necessarily age). A ''biological parent'' is a person whose gamete resulted in a child, a male t ...

, Raymond and Tryphosa. He and his family immigrated to Canada in 1969 to attend his sister's wedding and remained there since.

Career

Early years

His first career as a businessperson began at

Ford Motor Company of Canada Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited ( French: ''Ford du Canada Limitée'') was founded on August 17, 1904, for the purpose of manufacturing and selling Ford automobiles in Canada and the British Empire. It was originally known as the Walkerville ...

and

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

Cineplex Odeon Corporation

Ellis Jacob's entry into the film exhibition business took place in October 1987 when he joined

Cineplex Odeon Corporation Cineplex Odeon Corporation was one of North America's largest movie theatre operators and live theatre, with theatres in its home country of Canada and the United States. The Cineplex Odeon brand is still being used by Cineplex Entertainment at ...

as its chief financial officer. Under his role, he helped bring the upstart movie chain back from the brink by 1993, and was promoted to chief operating officer in 1996. In 1998, he left Cineplex Odeon after the company merged with Loews Theatres to form

Loews Cineplex Entertainment Loews Cineplex Entertainment, also known as Loews Incorporated, is an American theater chain operating in North America. From 1924 until 1959, it was also the parent company of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM). The company was originally cal ...

Galaxy Cinemas and Cineplex Entertainment

After leaving Cineplex Odeon, Jacob served as the head of integration of

Alliance Atlantis Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. (commonly known as Alliance Atlantis and commonly shortened to simply Alliance or Atlantis and formerly traded as TSX:AAC) was a Canadian media company that operated primarily as a specialty service operato ...

who merged two companies in 1998. Shortly in October 1999, Jacob and

Gerry Schwartz Gerald W. Schwartz, OC (born 1941) is the founder, chairman and CEO of Onex Corporation. Schwartz has a net worth of US$1.5 billion, according to Forbes. Early life and career Schwartz was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He graduated from Kelvin Hi ...

(CEO of

Onex Corporation Onex Corporation is an investment manager founded in 1984. The firm manages capital on behalf of Onex shareholders, institutional investors and high net worth clients around the world. As of September 30, 2022, Onex had approximately US$47.2 ...

) founded

Galaxy Cinemas Cineplex Inc. (formerly Cineplex Galaxy) is a Canadian Movie theater, movie theatre and family entertainment centre chain headquartered in Toronto. The company was formed in 2003 via the acquisition of Loews Cineplex Entertainment, Loews Cine ...

with their mission to build 20 theatres in small and medium-sized cities across Canada. On November 26, 2003, Jacob became the CEO of the newly merged Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund which consisted of Galaxy Cinemas and the Canadian assets of the restructured Loews Cineplex which brought the chains to 86. In June 2005, Cineplex Galaxy acquired

Famous Players Famous Players Limited Partnership, DBA Famous Players, is a Canadian-based subsidiary of Cineplex Entertainment. As an independent company, it existed as a film exhibitor and cable television service provider. Famous Players operated numerous m ...

from

National Amusements National Amusements, Inc. is an American privately owned movie theater operator and mass media holding company incorporated in Maryland and based in Norwood, Massachusetts. It is the controlling shareholder of Paramount Global. History The ...

, under Jacob's watch, doubled its size. Since the 2010s, Jacob began expanding several concepts beyond movie theatres such as the launch of

The Rec Room The Rec Room is a Canadian chain of entertainment restaurants owned by Cineplex Entertainment. It first opened in Edmonton in 2016 and its locations feature entertainment and recreational attractions such as an Amusement arcade, arcade, driving ...

and foraying into

eSports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

and Digital Media.

Personal life

Jacob is married to Sharyn, with whom he has 2 daughters named Lauren and Resa. He speaks

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

, English, French, and many other dialects. On March 14, 2013, Jacob opened the family theatre in his mother's honor at the

Baycrest Health Sciences Baycrest Health Sciences is a research and teaching hospital for the elderly in the North York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto. Baycrest was originally founded in 1918 as the Toronto J ...

in North York. His mother, who died in 2010, was a resident there.

Awards and honors

*Member of

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the ...

(2010) *Member of Order of Ontario (2020)

References

External links

Ellis Jacob biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jacob, Ellis Canadian businesspeople Canadian Jews Indian Jews Indian emigrants to Canada Members of the Order of Canada People of Indian-Jewish descent Cineplex Entertainment 1954 births Living people