[Edmonton’s Victor Cui was named the next president and CEO of the Edmonton Elks. (Photo from Handout)]

Canada-born and raised Victor Cui, has been named president and chief executive officer of the Edmonton Elks, a professional Canadian football team that competes in the Canadian Football League. Cui helped build an Asian-based ONE Championship mixed-martial-arts organization, a multibillion-dollar sports entertainment business, PH Inquirer reported.

The Edmonton Elks “is the team that gave me my first scholarship. I was the recipient of the Johnny Bright Scholarship based on community, leadership, academics, and sports,” Cui told the Edmonton Sun. Cui said his family was “a typical immigrant story” of coming from the Philippines “knowing nothing” of Canada and “had no money.” His mother, Remy, is a nurse and his father, Victoriano, is an engineer. The government placed them in Rimbey, Alberta, where they experienced minus-40 degree weather for the first time in their life. 

Cui became vice-president of the student union at the University of Alberta. Running the downtown activities with Klondike Days was his first job. He then went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, working with the organizing committee of the Commonwealth Games. Cui also managed the election campaign of ex-Eskimo Bill Smith for mayor. His dad had campaigned for ex-Eskimo Don Getty for Premier of Alberta.