Asked for three words that best describe him, 42-year-old Steven R. Starker pauses a moment and then says, “Energetic. Competitive. Passionate.” As the question was in fact the last put to him after an hour-long sit-down, the only possible reaction is, “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
The father of three, over the last 12 years Starker has coached Little League Baseball, rec-league basketball and girls soccer.
Starker remains athletic and as this story goes to press he is headed for a fantasy basketball camp for grownups run by Duke University”™s Coach Mike Krzyzewski. He was a New Jersey schoolboy catcher and center-fielder, football quarterback and basketball point guard. “Field general-type of positions.” After two years of NCAA hoops at Pennsylvania”™s Muhlenberg College, he was cut: “Then I moved on to the greener pastures of intramurals.”
Three days out of Muhlenberg, Starker went to work for Spear, Leeds & Kellogg as a trader. He would remain with the company for 17 years, until 2003, reaching partner in 1996 and serving as co-CEO of the capital markets division beginning in 1997.
He was an executive committee member in 2000 when Spear, Leeds & Kellogg was sold to Goldman Sachs for (and he admits to calling the figure from memory) “about $7 billion,” after which he was named a partner in Goldman Sachs”™ equities division. He held that position until May 2003 when he and five colleagues started Bass Trading.
In January 2005, Bass Trading merged with San Francisco-based Baypoint Trading, run by 20-year Starker colleague Scott Kovalik, to form BTIG L.L.C. with Starker and Kovalik as co-managing partners.
“We have grown the business successfully,” Starker says, citing eight offices in New York City; Chicago; Boston; Aspen, Colo.; Red Bank, N.J.; Hong Kong; and Sydney, Australia. A London BTIG office is slated to open Sept. 1. BTIG now employs 150 people in America and 25 overseas. “We”™re bucking the trend of Wall Street”™s current downsizing. We”™re still in the growth phase.”
If it sounds as if Starker is a guy to have on your side in the gladiatorial canyons of Wall Street, it”™s equally easy to imagine charitable causes lighting up with joy when he turns his focus on their missions.
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Since 2000, he has been a founding board member for Jacob”™s Cure. The nonprofit funds testing and research to battle Canavan”™s disease, a neurological disorder that disproportionately affects those of Jewish heritage.
“We host a yearly bowling event at Chelsea Piers,” Starker says, noting Jacob”™s Cure efforts have amounted to several hundred thousand dollars. He”™s also active with the annual Jacob”™s Cure casino night in Westchester.
Every November, however, a lot of charities benefit. That”™s when BTIG hosts its “Children”™s Charity Day,” which Starker says has raised more than $5 million over the last four years. “It”™s one of the most remarkable days, where we can give back to the community and give back to the kids. It”™s incredible the feedback we get from clients. And the employees enjoy giving back to the less fortunate. But most importantly, it benefits the kids and the charities.”
Starker joined good friends Michael Brown and Andrew Friedwald to help the national Starlight Foundation, which helps seriously ill children and their families. Starker also has lent his considerable energies to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation of Westchester.
Some work, of course, can”™t be done with a handshake or a phone call. That work involves kids and athletics. Though taking a sabbatical this season from his Little League coaching duties, the day Starker spoke he was headed to substitute coach a game. “I have no strategy ”“ just teach a little and hope the kids have fun.”
He sums up by saying, “I am passionate in my work, in athletics, with kids and with charity.”
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