In addition to artists that it directly managed, Chrysalis booked Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck, Roxy Music, Curved Air, Yes and King Crimson, signed David Bowie to a music publishing contract, entered the recording studio business with Sir George Martin (The Beatles producer), directed concert tours and for a time ran London's Rainbow Theatre.
The label established itself with artists such as Jethro Tull, Clouds, Ten Years After, Procol Harum, Robin Trower, Leo Sayer, Spandau Ballet, Steeleye Span and numerous others who achieved success through Chrysalis and its licensees around the world.
He continued to build on Chrysalis's track record for credible music whilst applying his philosophy of maintaining a close personal involvement with all aspects of his signed artists' careers.
By way of examples, having seen an unknown New York based punk rock group, he purchased their contract from a small record label that could not afford to market them properly.
Also in New York, he heard Pat Benatar in a small club; with Chrysalis, she went on to sell millions of records, as did Huey Lewis and The News, a rock band from San Francisco.
After the breakup of UK punk band, Generation X, Ellis took the lead singer to America and launched the career of Billy Idol.
In each of these cases, and there are others, the common factor was Ellis' personal devotion of time, effort and career planning that took the artists to international success.
He made the music industry's first ever sell-through long form VHS video album with Blondie's Eat to the Beat (1980) (which was re-released in a remastered limited edition CD/DVD release in late June 2007).
Paula Cole's second album has had two US top ten singles and has achieved double platinum status; that is sales of 2 million units.
As Chairman of the BPI in 1990, Ellis was responsible for the establishment of the BRIT School of Performing Arts in Croydon, Surrey, funded by British Recording Industry Trust.