Robert Bruce Simonds, Jr. born in 1964 is an American film maker, entrepreneur, founder, president as well as CEO of STX Entertainment, who creates, produces, distributes, finances as well as markets films such as STX films, television as STX television, digital media such as STX digital, as well as live events and virtual reality like STX surreal. He was born in Phoenix, Arizona. He graduated from Yale University.
Simonds has created more than 30 Hollywood studio films from 1990 to 2012, such as Adam Sandler’s films Billy Madison , Happy Gilmore , The Wedding Singer , Big Daddy as well as The Water boy ; Cheaper by the dozen and The Pink Panther , starring Steve Martin; and This Means War with actress Reese Witherspoon and Tom Hardy, winner of an Academy Award. Simonds has also made a series of highly profit-making trendy films, such as Joe Dirt and Half Baked. Simonds has had the best studio record in terms of profitability of his films.
In 2012, Simonds and Bill Mc Glashan, founder as well as the managing partner of private equity firm TPG Growth, started to conceptualize and make a film, television as well as multimedia company that would produce, market and deal out star-directed commercial content to be distributed all over the world. The company has a number of divisions: the film STX films, which includes animation as well as family content; STX television television, which includes live events as well as virtual reality STX surreal; together with an international association and a distribution arm with London-based STX international.
In 2014, STX Entertainment was officially launched with financing held by TPG Growth, afterward the company secured funds from the Chinese private equity firm Hony Capital and others for example Gigi Pritzker and William “Beau” Wrigley, Jr. II. Working as president as well as CEO of STX, Simonds appointed veterans from the entertainment industry as his executive team, including former Viacom Entertainment Group COO Thomas B. McGrath as well as the former Crest Animation CEO Noah Fogelson. In 2016, the company received extra investments from Chinese Internet Company Tencent as well as Hong Kong-based telecommunications company PCCW, and from East West Bank president as well as CEO Dominic Ng. In 2017, the world’s biggest international broadband as well as television company, Liberty Global, invested a secret fund in the company. The finances from this round of funding were used to continue building the TV splitting up of STX Entertainment, develop even more internationally and perhaps make acquisitions.
The Board of Directors Bob Simonds in Variety of STX Entertainment is made of investors as well as industry veterans, such as: Simonds, McGlashan, David Bonderman founding partner of TPG Capital, John Zhao CEO of Hony Capital, Gigi Pritzker creator of MWM Studios, Janice Lee managing director of PCCW Media Group, Tracy Cui CEO of Hony Capital, Frank Biondi previous president and CEO of Viacom as well as previous president and CEO of Universal Studios; senior executive director of WaterView Advisors, president as well as CEO of Dominic Ng of East West Bank, Carmen Chang, president of New Enterprise Associates, and Bruce Mann, programming director of Liberty Global.