BUSINESS - AMC Entertainment Elevates Ellen Copaken to Senior Vice President Marketing

Ellen Copaken - (Photo credit: Isaac Alongi)

Reporting to Chairman and CEO Adam Aron - Copaken immediately takes over the leadership of AMC's industry-leading Marketing department

LEAWOOD, Kan. USA - (BUSINESS WIRE)

Friday September 8, 2023

AMC Theatres the largest theatrical exhibitor in the United States and in the world, today announced it is promoting Ellen Copaken to be its Senior Vice President Marketing, effective immediately. Copaken will report to Adam Aron, AMC Chairman and CEO, and will join AMC's Executive Committee.

Copaken joined AMC in February of 2022 as Vice President of Growth Strategy, after more than 20 years of experience in senior marketing roles at high profile brands like Frito-Lay, PepsiCo, and Hostess Brands. In joining AMC, Copaken's first charge was to launch AMC's significant strategic initiative in making AMC's Perfectly Popcorn available for purchase in the home.

Through her cross-departmental leadership, the initiative launched with an exclusive partnership with Walmart in March, ahead of internal timeline expectations and to great fanfare. In the ensuing months since launch, AMC's popcorn initiative has put AMC Perfectly Popcorn in more than 2,600 Walmarts across the United States and on Walmart.com, and delivered sales results that well exceeded Company expectations.

Prior to AMC, Copaken worked in marketing leadership roles for Frito-Lay, PepsiCo and Hostess Brands. Her long tenure in marketing leadership roles and her success in leading AMC's cross-functional popcorn-initiative launch team makes her a perfect fit to lead AMC's best-in-class Marketing department.

Copaken succeeds Eliot Hamlisch, who had been commuting across the country to AMC's Theatre Support Center in Leawood, Kansas from his residence in northern New Jersey. For personal reasons, Hamlisch was unable to relocate permanently.

In conjunction with Copaken's elevation to head Marketing, AMC has made the following related corporate organizational moves:

AMC's grocery popcorn initiative will move to the Marketing department and continue to be overseen by Copaken and her popcorn team.

The role of Mark Pearson, SVP & Chief Strategy Officer, to whom Copaken previously reported, is unchanged and he will continue to lead AMC's strategic and innovative growth opportunities. He continues to report directly to Adam Aron.

AMC's external communications, led by Ryan Noonan, Vice President of Corporate Communications & Public Relations, will now also report directly to Adam Aron.

AMC's internal communications efforts will move to Human Resources, led by Carla Chavarria, Senior Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer.

AMC Chairman and CEO Adam Aron commented: "Ellen Copaken has truly distinguished herself as she grabbed the reins of our desire to launch AMC Perfectly Popcorn to the home market. In the year and a half that she has been with us, her talent, skill, and affable nature have been obvious to all who have interacted with her. I could not be more excited to be working with her as she now also assumes the leadership of our Marketing efforts."

Aron continued, "Heretofore, over and over again, our Marketing group has continually blazed new trails in the movie theatre industry. One of the key reasons I am so confident that Ellen will excel in her new role is that she will be directing a remarkably skilled team of officers and managers. I know that together they all will continue to keep AMC at the forefront of innovation and imagination to push our business forward."

AMC is the largest movie exhibition company in the United States, the largest in Europe and the largest throughout the world with approximately 900 theatres and 10,000 screens across the globe. AMC has propelled innovation in the exhibition industry by: deploying its Signature power-recliner seats; delivering enhanced food and beverage choices; generating greater guest engagement through its loyalty and subscription programs, website, and mobile apps; offering premium large format experiences and playing a wide variety of content including the latest Hollywood releases and independent programming.

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