Board of Directors
Steve Williams, Founder & CEO
Steve has been a pioneer in the development and implementation of cutting edge interactive media services over the past 35 years. He began in 1985 when he founded Music Systems, Inc., the first interactive telephone based music sampling and purchasing service, which was marketed on MTV and VH1. From 1988 to 1991, Williams served as the Director of New Business Development for the first television on demand music channel, The Box. Here, he created the model for advertising and interactive pay-per-call services.
In 1991, he founded Interactive Media Technologies, Inc., which grew into a $25 million dollar a year international company. As CEO of IMT, Williams guided its subsidiaries GlobalTel IP, an IP based provider that unified communications solutions for both enterprise and managed environments with “Crash Phone” installations at Dulles, Dallas, Reagan and other major airports. Williams also operated GlobalNova, a Brazilian CLEC, GlobalTel, an international callback service and American Roaming Network which provides interactive telephone based manual roaming services on an exclusive basis for Verizon & Sprint. In 2008, Williams negotiated the purchase of Verisign Brazil from Verisign international, a billing services company providing roaming billing solutions and management reporting services to Vivo, Claro, Oi and other Brazilian Mobile Carriers.
CONTACT: [email protected]
STEPHEN APPEL, CHIEF STRATEGIC OFFICER
For over thirty five years as a broadcast television executive Stephen’s responsibilities covered revenue generation, marketing, corporate oversight and eventually culminated in the single largest television turnaround in network history, ion media. Stephen Appel was responsible for presenting and developing ion’s network television upfront presentation every year for the advertising industry.
At ion, he was most proud of managing all revenues resulting in a previously unheard of 57 percent margin advantage and a RPE (revenue per employee) that beat Google, Facebook, Twitter and many others. Within ten years Stephen and his team had taken ion television from a $250 million dollar valuation to a $3 billion dollar sale in 2021 to Scripps Broadcasting company.
Before ion, Stephen worked in management at Westinghouse, ABC, and NBC where he developed and managed revenue generating platforms that are still being used today. In his earliest years, Stephen helped direct many aspects of the launch of Bruce Springsteen’s career.
CONTACT: [email protected]
PAUL WILLIAMS, FOUNDER
Paul Williams is a former Investment Banking Executive and serial entrepreneur. Paul is a founding partner of Pillow Fight Championship and a co-founder of StingBox LLC, a network security product manufacturer. Paul resides in Jupiter Florida with his wife of 40 years, Lisa. Paul has two children and grandchildren.
Paul’s investment bank experience reviewing business plans led to the evolution of his brother, Steve Williams’ initial plans for an MMA business. Paul reasoned that “while combat sports are the fastest growing sports in the world, some viewers detest violence and not all brands want blood stains on their logos’. Thinking back to a favorite childhood pastime, Paul and Steve developed the idea of competitive pillow fighting featuring world class athletes and MMA fighters and PFC: Pillow Fight Championship was born.
CONTACT: [email protected]