Smith attended Cornell for undergrad but he never lost touch with Bell Labs. He continued to do work there as an intern during his summer and winter breaks before graduating Cornell with a chemical-engineering degree.
Smith would rise to cohead of enterprise systems and storage-investment banking, advising on $50 billion of deals from 1994 to 2000.
“When I left my post at Goldman Sachs just after we had gone public to set up a private equity firm called Vista Equity Partners … my mentors and colleagues at Goldman thought I had lost it,” he said in his speech earlier this year.
“I was never mad at those folks, in fact I’m grateful for their advice and concern. In their caution, I found my courage. In their doubts, I found my resolve. In their warnings, I found my voice and chartered my own journey.”
Smith’s strategy — as well as his work ethic — have won him praise on Wall Street. He’s the “antithesis of [Blackstone CEO Steve] Schwarzman,” a tech-industry banker told Business Insider. The banker went on to praise Vista, as well, saying “there is no shortage of PE shops that have succumbed to style creep and/or chasing fleeting trends, but Vista has remained focused on enterprise software and technology.”
In 1994, he joined Goldman Sachs in tech investment banking, first in New York 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 in San Francisco at Goldman to focus solely on technology mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Smith’s business achievements and global philanthropic works have received recognition from numerous entities ‐ including the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Chair’s Award, the Reginald F. Lewis Achievement Award, the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Robert Toigo Foundation, the Ripple of Hope Award from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, the Award of Excellence from the National Association of Investment Companies, the Pierre Toussaint Award from the Archdiocese of New York, and the Columbia University BBSA Distinguished Alumni Award.
Mr. Smith is the founding director and President of the Fund II Foundation, which is 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 January 2016, Cornell University honored Mr. Smith’s leadership by naming the Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Mr. Smith is the Chairman of Carnegie Hall and the Chairman of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. He serves 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.
Education
B.S. in Chemical Engineering, Cornell University
M.B.A., Concentration in Finance and Marketing, Columbia Business School
