Robert F. Smith
Robert F. Smith is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners (Vista). He directs Vista’s investment strategy and decisions, firm governance and investor relations. Vista has over $100 billion in assets under management and oversees a private equity and permanent capital portfolio of over 80 software companies that employ over 95,000 people worldwide. Since Vista’s founding in 2000, Smith has overseen over 600 completed transactions by the firm.
While Vista has grown, Smith has also extended his philanthropic impact. Social and criminal justice reform and racial equity, for example, are central pillars of Smith’s philanthropy. By joining the United Justice Coalition as a founding advisory board member, Smith is expanding his efforts to create meaningful change.
Over the years, Smith’s philanthropic and business achievements have been recognized. In 2023, he received the Founder’s Award from Foster Love, the Legal Defense Fund’s National Equal Justice Award and the George H.W. Bush Points of Light Award. In 2022, Smith received theGrio Philanthropy Icon Award and the National Arts Award from Americans for the Arts. In 2020, Smith was named one of the TIME100’s Most Influential People. In 2017, Smith was named by Forbes as one of the 100 Greatest Living Business Minds.
Born in Colorado to two parents with EdDs, Smith studied to be an engineer at Cornell University, earning his B.S. in chemical engineering. Smith went on to receive his MBA from Columbia Business School with honors. Smith worked at Kraft General Foods, where he earned two U.S. and two European patents. In 1994, he joined Goldman Sachs in tech investment banking, first in New York and then in Silicon Valley.
Smith is the founding director and President of Fund II Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving the Black experience, safeguarding human rights, providing music education, preserving the environment, promoting the benefits of the outdoors, and sustaining critical American values. He also leads organizations like Southern Communities Initiative (SCI), which is dedicated to creating a lasting impact in the six Southern communities where more than 50% of Black Americans live.
In 2017, Smith signed on to the Giving Pledge, the first Black American to do so. Smith is the Chairman of Carnegie Hall and serves as NAF’s Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors. He is also an at-large board member of Business Roundtable and the Board of Overseers of Columbia Business School, as well as a Member of the Cornell Engineering College Council.
Smith has been a leading voice advocating for companies to take on diverse internship candidates in STEM fields. Under his leadership, in 2019, Fund II Foundation launched internXL, a platform to match leading companies with diverse internship candidates.
In 2019, Smith received an honorary doctorate from Morehouse College and made headlines by announcing that he would cover the student loans of nearly 400 Morehouse College graduates in a commencement address. After his Morehouse College pledge, Smith was inspired to do more and helped launch Student Freedom Initiative (SFI) to further address the crushing burden of student debt for qualifying STEM students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). Smith continues to lead SFI initiatives in his role as Chairman.
Smith also has been a strong advocate for what he has named The 2% Solution - calling on large corporations to commit 2% of their annual net income over the next decade to empower underrepresented communities.