Bobby Downes

Downes holds both Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from California Polytechnic State University. In the early 1990's, after a three-year teaching stint in public education, Bobby spent several years leading teams across more than 20 countries as an ambassador. In 1999, Bobby co-founded ChristianCinema.com, the largest selection of faith-affirming and family-approved movies. The company specializes in title curation and consumer marketing of faith-based films and has the respect of the industry as one of the leading key indicators for the genre. Christian Cinema is the only Transactional Video On-Demand platform serving families of faith with apps for Apple, Roku, Android and Amazon devices. Bobby led the company into one of 2010's Inc. 5000 leading businesses in America. With a valuation of $6 million by the end of 2017, Bobby led the efforts and successfully donated Christian Cinema, LLC to form the Giving Company, a global non-profit faith and family media network. Bobby has produced more than a dozen feature films for the faith market with his brother Kevin Downes beginning in 1999. Downes' most notable film was based on the novel by New York Times best-selling author Karen Kingsbury: Like Dandelion Dust starring Academy-Award® winner Mira Sovino and Emmy Award Winner Barry Pepper was released by Twentieth Century Fox after winning more than 30 international film festival awards. From early 2006 through the end of 2008, Bobby was core to bringing the #1 New York Times' best-selling novel The Shack to publication through Hachette Book Group, the worlds second largest publisher. The Shack remained number one on the New York Times Bestseller list for more than 50 weeks. Bobby's work on the writing, brand development and publishing of the book played a critical role in the sales of more than 20 million copies worldwide.