John J. Sie is a

Chinese-American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from m ...

businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder and chairman of Starz Entertainment Group LLC.

Early life

Born in

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

, China, Sie and his family escaped from Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War to Taiwan. He came to the United States when he was 14 years old. During high school he lived in an orphanage in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. As a young man he earned B.E.E. and M.E.E. degrees from Manhattan College and

Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn The New York University Tandon School of Engineering (commonly referred to as Tandon) is the engineering and applied sciences school of New York University. Tandon is the second oldest private engineering and technology school in the United Sta ...

in 1957 and 1958.

Career

After school Sie began his career in 1958 with RCA Defense Electronics Division on advanced microwave solid state devices. In 1960, he co-founded and later became chairman and chief executive officer of Micro State Electronics Corp. Sie then joined Jerrold Electronics Corp, a subsidiary of General Instrument Co., as general manager and senior vice president of the Cable Television Division. Sie then began work for Showtime Entertainment as senior vice president of sales and marketing. In 1984, Sie left the East Coast and joined Colorado's

Tele-Communications Inc. Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) was a cable television provider in the United States, and for most of its history was controlled by Bob Magness and John Malone. The company was started in 1958 in Bozeman, Montana as Western Microwave, Inc. and Co ...

(now Comcast and Liberty Media), as senior vice president in charge of strategic planning, programming, marketing, technology, and government relations. In 1989 he submitted the first white paper on digital

high-definition television High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...

to the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

and the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

. In 1991, with the support of Tele-Communications Inc, Sie founded and was the chairman and chief executive officer of the Starz Encore Group. Sie retired in January 2005 as chief executive officer of Starz Entertainment Group.

Philanthropy and civic involvement

Sie and his wife, Anna Maglione Sie, established the Anna and John J. Sie Foundation in 2005 supporting the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...

's Sie Family Down Syndrome Break-Through Research Initiative; the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Univ ...

's Chair of Italian Language and Culture Anna Maglione-Sie; the

Denver School of Science and Technology DSST Public Schools (DSST), formerly known as the Denver School of Science and Technology, is a public charter STEM network comprising 16 schools on eight campuses in Denver and Aurora, Colorado, United States, in partnership with Denver Public S ...

; the

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between ...

. Sie is a member of the Committee of 100. In honor of his father, Sie established the Sie Cheou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy at the University of Denver’s

Josef Korbel School of International Studies The Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver is a professional school of international affairs offering undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees. It is named in honor of the founding dean, Josef Korbel, father o ...

. Sie supports the Chinese Executive Media Management Program. He helped establish that visiting scholar program in 2000 at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business. He belongs to the honor fraternity

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is a highly prestigious, non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886 ...

and the service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega.

Awards

Sie received numerous awards and honors: 2010 Community Cultural Enrichment Award, Mizel Museum, 2009 Chinese American Hero, Asian Week Magazine, 2009 Man and Woman of the Year, The Villager, 2008 Asian Pacific Americans in Business, Voices from Colorado, 2003 Inductee, Cable Television Hall of Fame, 2002 International Bridge Builder Award, Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, 2001 Chairman’s Award, Cable Television Administration and Marketing Association (CTAM, 2001 Stanley B. Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award, National Association of Minorities in Communications, 2001 Bridge Builder Asian American Leadership Award, The AURA Fund and aMedia, Inc., 2001 Bill Daniels Business Leader of the Year, The Denver Business Journal, 1986 Grand Tam Award CTAM, 1982 Robert H. Beisswenger Memorial Award (Vanguard Associates Award) by the National Cable Television Association, 1960 RCA David Sarnoff Fellowship, 1958 Microwave Research Institute Fellow, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.

Personal life

Sie is married to Anna Maglione Sie, and has several children, including Michelle Whitten.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sie, John J. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Chinese emigrants to the United States American entertainment industry businesspeople American company founders Chinese company founders American chairpersons of corporations Chinese chairpersons of corporations Members of Committee of 100 Manhattan College alumni 20th-century Chinese businesspeople 21st-century Chinese businesspeople Chinese Civil War refugees