Mr. Stern is a founder of Datek Online Holdings Corp. He served as a Director and as its Chief Technology Officer from its founding in 1996 until its recent merger with Ameritrade. In a few short years, Datek grew from start-up to the fourth largest company in its industry, and a nationally recognized brand.
Mr. Stern is recognized throughout the financial services industry as a visionary who saw the commercial potential of the Internet in the early 1990s, when it was still primarily used by engineers and scientists.
Datek Online was known for its innovative and effective product offering. Mr. Stern and Datek Online were the first to provide the retail brokerage industry with several new products that eventually became industry standards, such as real-time quotes and account updates, streaming quotes, after-hours trading, decimal pricing, and more.
Mr. Stern also has a strong interest in improving education in the NYC Metropolitan area. He started a volunteer-based project that encouraged corporations to donate unused computing equipment to local schools, successfully installing over five hundred computers at inner city schools from Newark to Queens.
Prior to moving to New York City and helping found Datek Online, Mr. Stern worked in the aerospace industry for six years. Mr. Stern has a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University.
