Timothy Stokely
BornJuly 1983 (age 40)
Harlow, United Kingdom
EducationAnglia Ruskin University
OccupationBusinessman
Known forFounder and CEO OnlyFans (until 2021)
TitleChief executive OF

Timothy Christopher Stokely (born July 1983) is a British businessman and the founder and former CEO of the internet site OnlyFans. He has been described by The Sunday Times as "the king of homemade porn".[1] He officially stepped down in December 2021.

Early life

Tim Stokely was born in Harlow,[2] Essex,[3] in July 1983, the youngest of four children of Guy Stokely, a retired ex-Barclays investment banker. He has a degree from Anglia Ruskin University.[4]

Career

Stokely's first businesses were the adult performance websites GlamWorship and Customs4U, and a site to connect customers to tradespeople.[5] He founded OnlyFans in 2016 alongside his older brother, Thomas Stokely and with the help of a £10,000 loan from his father, Guy,[6] who told him, "Tim, this is going to be the last one".[5] His brother is the company's chief operating officer and his father is head of finance.[5][7] He sought to avoid the mistakes of his earlier sites by building in a referral system that gave third parties an incentive to recruit new content creators to the site.[2]

He has been described by The Sunday Times as "the king of homemade porn" as the majority of OnlyFans' content is pornographic.[1] Stokely cites the investor Warren Buffett and his book Warren Buffett on Business as one of his influences.[2]

In 2018, Stokely sold a 75% stake in OnlyFans' parent company Fenix International to Leonid Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-American businessman and the owner of porn site MyFreeCams.[5][8] After this, OnlyFans became increasingly focused on not safe for work (NSFW) content and "gained a pop culture reputation for being a hive of pornography".[8]

Stokely lives in a "gated mansion with a cinema and sauna" in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire.[1] He subscribes to two OnlyFans content creators, James Haskell and Chris Robshaw, which reflects his interest in rugby.[2]

On 23 December 2021, Tim Stokely stepped down as CEO of OnlyFans, and was succeeded by Indian-American businesswoman Amrapali Gan. Gan originally joined the company in 2020 as its chief marketing and communications officer.[9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Das, Shanti (26 July 2020). "Meet the king of homemade porn — a banker's son making millions". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 25 May 2021. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Barrie, Thomas (16 March 2021). "OnlyFans CEO Tim Stokely's tips for success". GQ. Archived from the original on 25 May 2021. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  3. ↑ Murphy, Margi (2 April 2021). "The Essex-born OnlyFans founder who built a porn empire". Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 25 May 2021. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  4. ↑ "About". timstokely.com. Archived from the original on 25 May 2021. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Nilsson, Patricia (30 April 2021). "OnlyFans blurs boundaries as lockdown demand drives success". The Financial Times. Archived from the original on 25 May 2021. Retrieved 25 May 2021.(subscription required)
  6. ↑ "Essex family behind OnlyFans profit from pornography boom". The Guardian. 24 May 2021. Archived from the original on 27 November 2021. Retrieved 20 August 2021.
  7. ↑ Thomas Brewster; David Dawkins. "The Shady, Secret History Of OnlyFans' Billionaire Owner". Forbes. Archived from the original on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
  8. 1 2 Zitser, Joshua (24 December 2020). "'Being made homeless is a perpetual fear': What it's like to risk everything just for posting on OnlyFans". The Independent. Archived from the original on 25 May 2021. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  9. ↑ "Who is Amrapali Gan? All you need to know about OnlyFans' new CEO". The Economic Times. Archived from the original on 26 December 2021. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
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