Stephen Stokols is an American entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

, technologist, and executive located in Oakland, California

Oakland, California

Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

. Stokols was Chief Executive Officer

Chief executive officer

A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

 of Woo Media

Woo Media

Woo Media was an online chat and video social network which offered a variety of interactive sites that provided live social entertainment through a computer or mobile device....

, which he co-founded with George Berkowski, until its sale to Zoosk in November 2011. The idea for Woo Media was spurred by his sister's experience with speed dating. Stokols immediately saw an opportunity for an online speed dating website leveraging new web based video technologies and created WooMe. Over four years, Stokols grew Woo Media into an online media group, incorporating several online communication channels.

Prior to the creation of Woo Media, Stokols represented the BT Group

BT Group

BT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...

 as BT's Vice President of Strategy and Business Development. Before moving to BT Group, Stokols was the Director of Commerce at Qwest Communications. Stokols also worked for CMGI where he focused on positioning AltaVista

AltaVista

AltaVista is a web search engine owned by Yahoo!. AltaVista was once one of the most popular search engines but its popularity declined with the rise of Google...

 for its sale to Yahoo.

Investments

Since 2000, Stephen Stokols has co-founded two technology start-up

Start-up

Startup or start-up may refer to:* Booting, an initialization period that computers and electronics go through when first turned on;* Project commissioning, the act of starting for the first time a technical installation;...

 companies, Woo Media

Woo Media

Woo Media was an online chat and video social network which offered a variety of interactive sites that provided live social entertainment through a computer or mobile device....

 and JustWhatiWant.com. Stokols and his executive team sold JustWhatiWant.com in 2000.

Education and honors

Stephen Stokols received his MBA from UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business

Haas School of Business

The Walter A. Haas School of Business, also known as the Haas School of Business or simply Haas, is one of 14 schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley....

 in 2002. During this time, Stokols attained two significant fellowships: Haas Venture Capital Fellowship in 2001 and the Price Center Fellowship in 2000.

Stokols attended the London Business School

London Business School

London Business School is an international business school and a constituent college of the federal University of London, located in central London, beside Regent's Park...

from where he received his Masters of Finance degree in 2007.