Previously the Chairman and CEO of Digital Domain, the predecessor to Digital Domain (HKSE: 547), Textor led its acquisition and restructuring from May 2006, through a NYSE valuation of $450 million in Spring 2012, until his resignation in August 2012. Together the companies were responsible for the visual effects of more than 80 large scale feature films, 25 of which were completed during his leadership, including such films as Transformers, Flags of our Fathers, Tron:Legacy, Real Steel and Pirates of the Caribbean at World’s End. During that time, Digital Domain experienced a doubling of its revenues in just three years, was re-established as a market leader in visual effects, winning multiple Academy Awards, CLIO advertising awards and, importantly, being recognized as the first visual effects company to deliver a believable digital human actor in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. This achievement, known as the ‘Holy Grail of Animation’, earned the company a 2009 Academy Award for Achievement in Visual Effects.
Other highlights during Textor’s tenure at Digital Domain included the invention of the Holographic Virtual Performance Industry, with the break-through introduction of digital Tupac Shakur at Coachella, also the consummation of a joint venture for the digital resurrection of Elvis Presley, the creation of a first of its kind, dual-enrollment Bachelor’s program with Florida State University, completion of a $100 million joint venture agreement with the sovereign media authority of Abu Dhabi and the transformation of Digital Domain into a film production company with the co-production of Ender’s Game.
He also served as the Chairman and CEO of BabyUniverse, Inc., a leading e-tailer of baby-related products, which Textor saved from insolvency with only a $300,000 investment in 2001, increasing revenues from $1 million to $40 million, and selling in October of 2007 for roughly $90 million. As the founding director and the largest shareholder of Virtual Bank, a Florida-based Internet banking startup, he was responsible for the achievement of developing it into a multi-billion dollar diversified financial services company. In addition, he was also a director of Multicast Media Technologies, Inc., a global provider of Internet-based broadcast media, which was sold successfully to KIT Digital of Czechoslovakia, and previously Chairman of the Board and principal owner of Sims Snowboards, the world’s 2nd leading snowboard brand, with led to him inventing the World Snowboarding Championship.
John Textor is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT.