Robert F. Smith is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Vista Equity Partners. Vista currently manages equity capital commitments of over $100Bn and oversees a portfolio of over 80 enterprise software, data, and technology-enabled companies. Since Vista’s inception, Smith has supervised over 600 completed transactions representing more than $290 billion in aggregate transaction value.
In 2017, Smith was named by Forbes as one of the 100 Greatest Living Business Minds.
Smith is the founding director and President of the Fund II Foundation, dedicated to preserving the African American experience, safeguarding human rights, providing music education, preserving the environment while promoting the benefits of the outdoors, and sustaining critical American values.
In 2017, Smith signed on to the Giving Pledge. His gift of $20 million was the largest by an individual donor to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Smith is the Chairman of Carnegie Hall and serves as the Vice Chairman of the Board of NAF, on the Board of Directors for the Business Roundtable, on the Board of Overseers of Columbia Business School, as a Member of the Cornell Engineering College Council, and a Trustee of the Boys and Girls Clubs of San Francisco.
In 2019, Smith made headlines by announcing that he would cover the student loans of nearly 400 Morehouse College 2019 graduates in a commencement address. After his Morehouse pledge, Smith founded the Student Freedom Initiative to relieve the crushing burden of student debt for STEM students at all HBCUs.
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 for the next decade to empower minority communities. He also co-leads the Southern Communities Initiative, a catalytic program for racial equity across six southern communities representing half of the Black population in the U.S.
