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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