Jay Stark
President and COO
Mr. Stark is the president and chief operating officer of Plaino LLC; where he oversees all marketing, business development, strategic initiatives, and operational duties of the company.
Mr. Stark brings over 15 years of experience in the new-media, data communications and service provider industries. Previous to Plaino, Stark co-founded Broadstream Communications, Inc., where he served as Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing and was responsible for all sales, marketing, product development, and customer care activity for the company. Broadstream Communications became the telecommunications industry’s first virtual IPTV headend system allowing smaller Telco and data-communication providers to enter the digital video market using Internet Protocol delivery instead of traditional cable networks. Broadstream secured the industries first of it’s kind IPTV distribution rights with tier-1 programmers including ABC-Disney, Fox, Tuner Networks, MTV/Viacom, Discovery Networks, and hundreds of other channels. Broadstream launched the first satellite based IPTV delivery platform in the country, bringing together major cable programmers, IPTV middleware, and the ecosystem to deliver and end-to-end service offering. Broadstream Communications was acquired by Avail Media Inc. in 2007.
Prior to his founding of Broadstream, Mr. Stark served as a consultant to Fisher Pathways, Inc. overseeing all product and marketing strategy for the satellite and fiber media connectivity initiatives. Immediately prior to Fisher Pathways, Mr. Stark served as director of market services for Civia, Inc., a digital narrowcasting company acquired by Fisher Communication as a tool to leverage their wealth of media assets including the flagship ABC television station in Seattle, WA.
Earlier, Mr. Stark served as executive director, product and marketing for Advanced Radio Telecom Corp. (now FiberTower Communications), a publicly traded broadband fixed wireless company delivering the first wireless metro Ethernet data service and demonstrating the industry’s first IP-Video live streaming service over a wireless broadband network.
Mr. Stark’s telecommunications career also spans both RBOC and IXC industries where he served as group manager of out-of-region services for US West (now Qwest), which launched the first RBOC interLATA data services following the Telcom Act of 1996. Before US West, Mr. Stark was an account manager for AT&T Major Markets, responsible for sales of the earliest frame relay and ATM data networks services, and served as a SME for AT&T’s then new dedicated Internet services.
Mr. Stark holds a B.S. in Finance from the University of South Florida and a Masters of International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management (THUNDERBIRD).
