Stephen Arata

Prior to joining Next Wave in 2024, Mr. Arata spent 11 years with Blue Racer Midstream. Mr. Arata was a co-founder of Blue Racer and served as its CFO for three years before his promotion to CEO in 2015. At Blue Racer, Mr. Arata oversaw the development and financing of more than $2.0 billion of capital projects and arranged more than $4.0 billion of debt financing. Prior to Blue Racer, Mr. Arata served as CFO of Caiman Energy, where he led the sale of Caiman’s main asset, Caiman Eastern, to Williams Companies for $2.5 billion.

Prior to Caiman Energy, Mr. Arata served as CFO of Regency Energy Partners LP, a publicly-traded master limited partnership (MLP). Shortly after joining Regency, Mr. Arata led the IPO of the company. During his more than five years as CFO, Mr. Arata’s areas of responsibility included accounting, finance, treasury, corporate development, investor relations, information technology, human resources, and internal audit.

Prior to joining Regency, Mr. Arata spent nine years as an investment banker in the Power & Pipelines Group at UBS, where he advised on more than $80 billion of completed transactions. 

Mr. Arata earned a BBA in Business and a BA in English from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, as well as a Masters of Management from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management in Evanston, IL. Mr. Arata serves on the board of Rays of Light Where Special Children Shine, as well as on the Executive Boards of both the SMU Cox School of Business and SMU’s Dedman College.