An 18-year Microsoft veteran who led and built technologies used by a billion people across the planet - and then joined the leadership of the 2nd largest independent eCommerce company in North America before negotiating a successful exit in 2018.  As a best-selling author on technology as magic, multi-patent holder and venture investor, Stefan lives to envision and build the future.

Stefan is the co-founder and CEO of HumanX, the world’s most important AI event. He is also an Officer and founder of Stella Center, a PTSD-treatment company that uses a revolutionary procedure to combat the effects of trauma. Finally, Stefan is a co-founder and founding Chief Product Officer of WeAreGiant, a company that connects musicians with their most passionate fans.  

Prior to his current roles, Stefan was an Operating Partner at Sterling Partners, a $4B private equity firm, where he helps companies discover and grow their unique commercial value by working with all levels of an organization to dream, define, and deliver products and services customers crave.  In this context, Stefan’s favorite role was on Datacubed, a company using behavioral science and AI to boost the efficacy of clinical drug trials.  

Stefan is often asked by organizations to deliver insight into an investment’s true north and then work with them to make it real through strategic, business, technical and organizational leadership.  

Prior to that, Stefan was the Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer of Radial, where he transformed the overall company’s strategy to capitalize on the current state of eCommerce.  He led a 320-person team that built the company’s technical products and services and managed $250M in revenue.  After driving 7x growth in one of the product lines in 16 months, the team sold Radial to BPost for $850M, at twice the EBITDA multiple for which it sold 24 months earlier.

At Microsoft, Stefan was on the founding team of Bing.com and worked with people and organizations across the globe to build and promote industry-leading Search technologies.  Bing grew from under 7% to nearly 30% US market share during his tenure and achieved profitability on over $3B in revenue. 

Prior to Search, Stefan led the strategy and development of Microsoft’s next generation online platforms, was the inventor and General Manager for Microsoft's muni WiFi strategy, built a cybersecurity defense unit, designed open-source development models for their flagship product, ran diligence and M&A efforts for a half-dozen acquisitions, and launched several global products to market. 

His varied experiences have given Stefan a catbird seat to see how products and organizations can succeed or fail and has led him to develop tools, systems and contacts that turn an idea into a business. 

Stefan has been writing code since he was 8 years old and is fluent in both hardware and software architecture, trends, and potentials.  His best-selling book, Search: How the Data Explosion Makes Us Smarter, gained international prominence, and led to dozens of speaking engagements ranging from 10 to 25,000 people in places from TEDx to The Nantucket Project. 

Stefan holds nearly a dozen US and international patents in the areas of big data and artificial intelligence.  He is also an active investor in 64 startups ranging from healthcare to virtualization, consumer food and eCommerce.  

Stefan serves on three corporate boards and two non-profit boards, including the GenCon Board for Conservation International and is active in Endeavor Global, a non-profit dedicated to incubating high-impact startups in developing markets.