(Black PR Wire) Robert F. Smith is Vista’s Founder, Chairman and CEO. He directs Vista’s investment strategy and decisions, governance and investor relations. Mr. Smith sits on the Investment Committees for Vista’s Flagship, Foundation, Endeavor and Perennial Funds. He serves as a member of Vista’s Executive Committee, the firm’s governing and decision-making body for matters affecting its overall management and strategic direction, as well as the Private Equity Management Committee, the firm’s decision-making body for matters affecting Vista’s overall private equity platform. Vista currently manages equity assets under management of over $100 billion and oversees a portfolio of more than 85 enterprise software, data and technology-enabled companies that employ over 100,000 people worldwide. Since Vista’s inception, Mr. Smith has supervised over 600 completed transactions representing more than $320 billion in aggregate transaction value.

Born in Denver, Colorado, to two parents with Doctor of Education (EdD) degrees, Mr. Smith trained as an engineer at Cornell University, earning his B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1985. In 2016, Cornell University honored Mr. Smith’s leadership by renaming the school he graduated from: Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. While earning his MBA from Columbia Business School with honors, he served as President of the Black Business Students’ Association and President of the Japan Business Association. After graduation, he worked at Goodyear Tire and Rubber, followed by Kraft General Foods, where he obtained two United States and two European patents for coffee filtration systems. Upon receiving his MBA in 1994, he joined Goldman Sachs in tech investment banking, first in New York City and then in Silicon Valley. As Co‐Head of Enterprise Systems and Storage, he executed and advised on over $50 billion in merger and acquisition activity with companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, eBay and Yahoo. He was the first person at Goldman’s San Francisco office to focus solely on mergers and acquisitions of technology and software companies.

In 2000, Mr. Smith founded Vista Equity Partners to invest in businesses that develop and use technology, software and data to promote economic equity, ecological responsibility and diversity and inclusion for the prosperity of all. Vista achieves its mission of creating opportunity through the power of technology by using a variety of private equity, permanent capital and credit investment strategies.

As one of the top experts on investing in the software and technology industry in the world, Mr. Smith has been invited to speak about finance, entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership and related topics at a variety of venues, including the World Economic Forum and The Milken Institute, among others. He has also appeared in numerous interviews for television, written publications, podcasts and other media.