The All Rounder
Jaki Ellenby is Chief Commercial Officer at ABBA Voyage. Three decades across Disney, Cirque du Soleil, Just for Laughs, Dubai Mall, Yas Island’s theme parks and Global Village. A career spent building categories of one.
“Every brand I’ve worked for has been the only one of its kind.”
Jaki Ellenby has spent more than thirty years building brands that compete in categories of one. Disneyland Paris. Disney Online. Just for Laughs. Cirque du Soleil. Yas Island’s three theme parks. Dubai Mall. Global Village. Dubai Municipality. And now ABBA Voyage, where as Chief Commercial Officer she oversees ticketing, partnerships, marketing and brand strategy for a concert format that has injected more than two billion pounds into the UK economy since launch.
Ellenby started early. At fourteen she was assigned the CMO role in a school Young Enterprise business making candles. At university she chose marketing over international finance, admits she would have been wealthier in the other discipline, and joined Disneyland Paris in 1992 before it opened. Five years as Senior Marketing Manager at the park were followed by three and a half years as Director of Marketing and Production at Disney Online, running digital across 150 websites in 14 countries for Europe and Latin America.
Independent consulting followed (Born2be, Parc Astérix), then a run of category-defining roles. VP Marketing and Sales at Just for Laughs in Montreal, the world’s largest comedy festival. Five and a half years at Cirque du Soleil as VP Strategic Marketing Development, responsible for brand, insights, digital and consumer products. A decade in the Middle East: VP Marketing at Miral Experiences on Yas Island (Warner Bros. World, Yas Waterworld, Ferrari World Abu Dhabi); Head of Marketing at Emaar for Dubai Mall, the world’s most-visited mall with 83 million annual visits and the world’s largest mall social community; Executive Director of Marketing at Global Village; and Senior Marketing Advisor at Dubai Municipality.
She joined ABBA Voyage as Chief Commercial Officer in March 2025. Her work now sits between commercial strategy and creative stewardship: a show based in a historically under-invested part of east London, a two-billion-pound economic contribution to the UK, a programme of local training and opportunity, and a 2025 Gen Z audience share on streaming that has extended the ABBA catalogue to people born decades after the band’s final studio album.
“A congregational church show circus. Can’t put that on a poster.”
“If you’re the only Disney park, you’re racing on your own.”
Ellenby’s career has oriented around brands that occupy categories of one. Disney. Cirque du Soleil. Ferrari World Abu Dhabi. Dubai Mall. ABBA Voyage. The pattern, she argues, is that competing to be fastest, biggest or cheapest is a race the brand eventually loses. Uniqueness is the only advantage that cannot be out-spent, because the competitive set is the brand’s own story, and no one else is running the same track.
“When people ask what I do, I say I sell tickets.”
Ellenby rejects the high-horse division between the art of marketing and the craft of sales. The end goal is identical, and when the two teams sign different contracts they eventually run in different directions. Creative tension between sales and marketing personalities is healthy; divergent objectives are fatal. Her CCO remit at ABBA Voyage puts ticketing, partnerships, marketing and brand under a single commercial spine.
“We create experiences that people can get into and take their own stories out of.”
Ellenby draws a sharp line between brands that tell stories and brands that host them. Consumer products like Pampers have to layer narrative into the product through content. P&G’s pre-birth content strategy, she says, is the working example: content aimed at expectant parents builds a relationship before the product is in use. Entertainment brands like Disney, Cirque du Soleil and ABBA Voyage work in reverse. They create experiences visitors step into and come out of with their own stories. The marketer’s job is to distil emotion that is already present, rather than layering it in.
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