Van den Ende started his career at age 15 as a trainee set carpenter for the Dutch Opera. Ten years later, in 1968, he opened his first independent theatrical and television production agency, Spotlight, followed by the creation in 1971 of Joop van den Ende Theaterproducties. Over the next decade his stage and television activities continued to expand, establishing him as one of the Netherlands' leading impresarios.
In 1983 he bought a former flower auction building near Amsterdam which he turned into a large studio complex where he could record his television productions. In September 1988, van den Ende produced a Dutch version of the musical Barnum in the Scheveningen Circustheater, starting a new musical tradition in the Netherlands that continues to this day. In October 1993 he opened his first show on Broadway: Cyrano. The production ran until March 1994, and although the show resulted in a financial loss, the musical was van den Ende’s introduction to Broadway and earned him the respect of his American peers.
In 1993, Van den Ende and John de Mol created television production company Endemol, combining the activities of their respective television production companies. Endemol went on to become the world’s largest independent television production company, creating popular TV formats such as Big Brother, Fear Factor, Dancing with the Stars and Wipeout.
Van den Ende's early work in live entertainment received international critical acclaim. In 1995 he received five Tony Awards for the Broadway musical Titanic, which he co-produced. In 2001 he was also awarded two Tony Awards for the musical 42nd Street, and in 2002 he received two Tony Awards for his Broadway production Into the Woods, plus three more for the play Urinetown.
In 1998, before the sale of Endemol, Van den Ende personally bought and took control of Endemol's live entertainment division. This was the beginning of Stage Entertainment, which soon grew into an international entertainment group.
In 2001, van den Ende and his wife Janine established the VandenEnde Foundation, one of the Netherlands’ largest private foundations, which supports cultural and educational projects and stimulates cultural entrepreneurship. The foundation also provides scholarships to talented young performing artists. One of the foundation’s most high-profile accomplishments was the reconstruction of the historic DeLaMar Theatre complex in the heart of Amsterdam. The VandenEnde Foundation — in close cooperation with the Dutch government and together with the Bankgiro Loterij, the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, and the VSBfonds— initiated the Blockbuster Fund, a fund designed to provide a sustainable way to make large-scale Investments in culture.
From 2005 to 2008, Van den Ende was active in real estate development through a joint venture that concentrated in mixed-use development and urban regeneration schemes around theatres, active in the Netherlands and abroad.
In 2007 he became President of the Stage Entertainment Supervisory Board.
Van den Ende returned to Broadway in the spring of 2011 with the musical Sister Act, a co-production with Whoopi Goldberg. This marked the beginning of a new phase in van den Ende’s longstanding ambition to develop a continuous stream of original musical content. Following successful launches in Germany (Ich war noch niemals in New York, Der Schuh des Manitu, Ich will Spass!) and the Netherlands (3 Musketiers, Ciske, Petticoat, Hij Gelooft in Mij), he produced Rocky at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway and Made in Dagenham at the Adelphi Theatre in London (both in 2014). Rocky won one Tony Award, one Outer Critics Circle Award, and two Drama Desk Awards.
For an overview of all of Joop van den Ende’s theatre productions, go to Stage Entertainment
