Technology >> CEO Interviews >> February 19, 2001
STEVEN R. KOLTAI, Chairman and CEO fo Event411, Inc., has broad
experience in the Internet industry, the entertainment industry,
international finance, strategic planning, marketing and general
management. Mr. Koltai began his career in government, working in the
international trade, finance and negotiations area at the Export-Import
Bank of the US. Mr. Koltai then moved to the International Corporate
Finance Department at Bankers Trust Company, with stints in New York,
London and Singapore. From 1980 through 1983, Mr. Koltai served in a
similar role as Vice President for International Project Finance at
Salomon Bros. In 1983, Mr. Koltai became involved in his first
entrepreneurial venture when he left Salomon Bros. to become the
founding president of the Luxembourg-based Astra Television satellite
venture. Astra, originally backed by HBO and Rupert Murdoch, has since
become the largest private television satellite system in the world,
with five satellites broadcasting to more than 75 million European
viewers and a market capitalization in excess of $7 billion. Following
the nationalization of the Astra venture in 1985, Mr. Koltai spent a
year as a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York,
followed by work as a consultant in the media practice of McKinsey &
Co., also in New York. In 1987, Mr. Koltai joined Warner Bros. in
Burbank, California, and began his eight-year tenure as a corporate
executive. For the first six of his eight years at WB, Mr. Koltai was
corporate Senior Vice President for Strategic Planning and Development
and was involved in the launch of several Warner Bros. businesses,
including the WB Studio Stores and the WB Television Network. During
most of this period, Mr. Koltai was also a member of Warner Bros.'
three-person Operating Committee. In 1993, Mr.Koltai left the corporate
staff at Warner Bros. to found and manage the new interactive division
he had created, Warner Bros. Online. In the following two years, Mr.
Koltai oversaw the creation of more than two dozen major Web sites as
well as the development of the first-ever made-for-the-Internet studio-
produced content. In January 1996, Koltai left Warner Bros. and founded
what is today Event411. Mr. Koltai was born in Budapest, Hungary, and
raised in Los Angeles and Kansas City, Missouri. He received his BA
magna cum laude from Tufts University and his MA with distinction from
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy ' a graduate program jointly
administered by Tufts and Harvard Universities. As a Fulbright Scholar,
he also earned a License in European Economics from the Free University
of Brussels. Profile
Event411?
Mr. Koltai: Event411 is the leading developer of Web-based event
planning software. We do this for two distinct
