JAY SHAH
President
Jay Shah, President of Star Advisory Services, LLC, a boutique consulting firm, has significant experience in fund raising, mergers & acquisitions, strategy development & execution, operations, and finance. Over the past 30+ years, he has been involved with 30+ successful acquisitions/divestiture transactions with an aggregate purchase price of over $1 Billion. He has also been involved with over 20 fund raises ranging from $500k - $5MM. He has been involved in corporate finance for over 25+ companies. Prior to Star Advisory Services, Jay was in executive management in corporate America. He has also been involved in doubling revenues and profits of companies through organic growth and acquisition growth. He has worked in several industries such as healthcare, e-commerce, media / publishing, talent management, financial services, hospitality, apparel, asset management, and not-for-profit.
Over the last 15+ years, Jay is / has been involved with several companies as their outsourced CFO and helped them with fund raising, corporate finance as well as exits. Representative clients include:
Real estate lending, investment, management & advisory company,
Integrated manufacturing quality management software solutions company,
Healthcare scheduling software company,
Education information company targeting children with medical conditions,
E-commerce company,
Advanced materials company,
Software company doing radiology analytics,
Software company in the Consumer Directed Healthcare market,
Healthcare IT company,
Data analytics company,
Web-based reference checking company
Competitive Response solutions company that enables companies to effectively anticipate and counter competitive threats, and win more business,
Financial services firm,
Medical device company for wound care therapy,
Clinical data analytics company.
Jay has also been involved in several special projects –
Compliance services business in the public safety industry,
Medical billing services company, sold to a private equity group),
Fund raising – served as a Board member & helped exit to a strategic buyer,
EMR company, sold to private equity,
Specialty printer business,
Cybersecurity technology company
Circulation project for OAG,
Acquisition due diligence on an Events Management Company,
Acquisition due diligence),
Fund Raising,
Majority sale to Private Equity,
Minority sale to Private Equity,
Partial sale to Private Equity,
Sale to strategic company backed by Private Equity,
Sale to Private Equity).
Prior to starting his own consulting firm, Jay held several progressive positions within Haights Cross Communications, formed in 1997, was a $200MM private equity (Great Hill Partners & CSFB) backed roll up within the supplemental education industry. Over his tenure at Haights Cross, from 2000 to 2004, Jay held several progressive positions. His last position was President & CEO of Buckle Down Publishing, a test prep publisher. Prior to Buckle Down, he was EVP, COO & CFO of Triumph Learning, another test prep publisher. Prior to
Triumph Learning, Jay was VP of Corporate Development for the parent company, Haights Cross Communications.
Prior to Haights Cross, Jay was at Primedia (formerly known as K-III Communications), a $1.8 billion publicly held media company, started by KKR, a private equity firm, in 1989. During his tenure at Primedia, from 1993 to 2000, the company grew from $745 MM in revenues to over $1,500 MM and went public. Jay held several progressive positions within Primedia. His last position was VP Operations & CFO at Films for the Humanities & Sciences. Prior to Films, Jay was the Director of Acquisition Analysis and Manager of Internal Audit, at Primedia, the parent company.
Prior to Primedia, Jay was with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, from 1987 to 1993. He was in their EBS (Emerging Business Services) group and was promoted from Staff Accountant to Manager (4 promotions) during the time at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
Mr. Shah holds the Bachelor of Science in Accounting from New York University, and Masters of Business Administration from Columbia University. He is also a New York State Certified Public Accountant. Mr. Shah won the New Jersey Tech Council “CFO Hall of Fame Award” in 2015. Mr. Shah also won Smart CEO “Executive Management Award” in 2015. Mr. Shah is an Ex-Advisory Board Member for the CFO Alliance and for New Jersey Technology Council’s CFO Advisory Board.
Mr. Shah lives in Monroe, New Jersey with his wife, Ragini and three children. He currently serves as a Treasurer and Board Member for a non-profit (Meditation4leadership), was on the board of Homeowners Association, is a volunteer at a summer youth camp, and was a coach for his son’s soccer team.