Early Career
A lifetime entrepreneur, Earl founded President Entertainment in 1977, a company specializing in theme restaurants that grew from a modest start-up to a company valued at more than $100 million when he agreed to sell the company to Pleasurama in 1998. Earl was invited by Pleasurama to join its executive team and orchestrated the acquisition of Hard Rock Café. During his five-year tenure as the CEO of Hard Rock Café, Earl oversaw the expansion of the brand from its initial seven units to 22 units, and dramatically increased the Company’s profitability. This growth was a direct result of aggressive marketing and non-stop positive press capitalizing on Earl’s vision to use the allure of Celebrity and creative events to earn Hard Rock Café a mystique that separated it from its competition.
During this same time period Earl was also a Director of Pelican Group PLC, and oversaw tremendous growth of brands such as Café Rouge, Dôme, and Mamma Amalfi all while increasing the profitability of each of the concepts, until its ultimate profitable sale to Whitbread PLC.
Read more about this topic: Robert Earl
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.”
—Linda Grant (b. 1949)
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)