Steve Gatena

Steve is the founder of pray.com, the world's #1 app for daily prayer and faith-based audio content. As a social impact company, Pray.com is driven by a mission to solve society’s biggest challenges by growing faith and cultivating community.

Prior to becoming an American Entrepreneur, Steve was an NCAA Champion. In college, Gatena played football for the University of Southern California where he won a Rose Bowl Championship as well as UC Davis where he won a Great West Conference Championship.

Steve started his first company, REP Interactive, when he was 22. REP Interactive went on to become the fastest-growing video agency in the United States and one of the best workplaces in America according to Inc Magazine. Steve has won more than one hundred awards for his work in video marketing for brands like Coldwell Banker, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Marriott Hotels.

Steve's second company, VideoFort, was launched in 2012 and quickly became Hollywood's largest stock footage manufacturer supplying companies like Getty, Adobe, and Shutterstock. VideoFort content has been featured in blockbuster movies like Transformers, award-winning TV shows such as Discovery Planet Earth, and a variety of major television commercials.

In 2014, Steve was honored as an "Entrepreneur of the Year"​ at the United Nations, in the EMPACT showcase, a program sponsored by Dell and Intel. In 2015, Steve sold his first two businesses and became the CEO of Helinet, a global leader in aerial surveillance systems and aerial video production.

Gatena left Helinet to start pray.com in 2016, shortly after his late mentor and business partner Alan Purwin passed away in a tragic plane crash outside Medellín, Colombia. In addition to becoming the #1 app for faith and prayer, Pray.com has been named as one of the Best Places to Work by the Los Angeles Business Journal and TinyPulse. In 2019 Steve was honored with CSQ Magazine's 40 Under 40 Visionary Award. In 2020, the President of the United States appointed Steve as a non-partisan advisor to the White House.