Stuart Rekant

Senior Advisor

Stuart is solutions oriented and enjoys working with business owners and managers to meet their objectives. He is an accomplished operating executive, entrepreneur and advisor, associated with both established businesses and early stage ventures, who has built several companies from startup to critical mass.

Stuart is experienced in the planning and execution of M&A and finance strategies in the small and medium-sized business sector on both the buy and sell side. As an operating executive, he has secured capital for content creation, business operations and acquisitions, and done so from strategic partners, institutional investors and lenders as well as private funders across a range of businesses. Stuart’s keen ability to strategically think through creative financing solutions has propelled the growth and transformation of the organizations he has led.

Background

Over the last 35 years, Stuart led the effort in a number of mergers, acquisitions and divestitures of middle market businesses principally in the media and information services arena. He served as a senior executive of three public companies and applied his project management and finance skills to the creation of over $40 million of non-fiction programming for national cable television networks.

Stuart set up a “blank check” public company as an acquisition vehicle to raise capital to buy an operating business. Serving as its Chairman and CEO, he raised $18 million in an initial public offering, running the buy side process to identify potential targets, enabling the purchase and later sale of the acquired company including ¡Sorpresa! the Hispanic children’s television network.

Stuart also established the content arm of WinStar Communications, Inc., the publically traded broadband communications company. He developed the strategy and implemented the plan to build a business to business information services compliment to WinStar’s local telecommunications offerings.

As President, he grew WinStar New Media through acquisition and internal development from inception to a $100 million run rate company in which Tudor Capital purchased a 19.9% interest. In addition to its traditional media operations, it included an internet ad sales arm; an on-line reference service that provided access to leading business databases; and Office.com, a web destination for small and medium-sized businesses offering on-line business-relevant content and services, which Stuart co-founded. CBS acquired a one third equity stake in Office.com prior to its launch in exchange for $42 million in media.

He began his career as an attorney with Columbia Pictures. Stuart went on to practice entertainment law and later joined HBO, serving as a member of its senior management team at a time of HBO’s explosive early growth.

Stuart received an A.B. from Colgate University and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law. He is a Member of the New York Bar.

Outside The Office

Stuart appreciates the arts, good food and the movies and spends his downtime in pursuit of cultural and culinary delights. He has an abiding affection for Nantucket and aspires to be an avid biker and spend quality kayak time on the water.

Get started with your business transformation today

Contact Us