Jay Novak is a general partner of a fixed-income hedge fund, director a start-up wind-power company, advisor to a medical device company, a trustee of Hamline University, and vice chair of the Hennepin Theatre Trust, which runs the State, Orpheum, and Pantages threaters in Minneapolis. He is also a minority partner in Aethlon Capital, a Minneapolis-based investment-banking company.
From early 2001 through autumn 2010, he was publisher and editor of Twin Cities Business, of which he was also founding editor from 1993 through 1995. From August 1995 to – January 1999 he was Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Trade and Economic Development under former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson, and in 1999 he became senior vice president of MJSK Investment Securities. He has also been director of communications at General Mills, press secretary for Former U.S. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, and an editor or reporter at several other business magazines and newspapers.
In 2010, he was inducted into the Minnesota Business Hall of Fame® and received an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year® award for Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas.