Robert F. Smith

In April 2020, Governor Greg Abbott named Smith to the Strike Force to Open Texas – a group "tasked with finding safe and effective ways to slowly reopen the state" amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In May 2019, Vista Equity Partners put in a bid to buy Kantar, the data analytics business owned by WPP.

The 2019 PitchBook Private Equity Awards named Vista Equity Partners 'Dealmaker of the Year' in recognition of its "especially notable" performance "as it completed a series of huge deals, raised its largest fund to date and —in a first —took a portfolio company public."

Among the honors and awards Smith has received are the Candle in Business and Philanthropy Award from Morehouse College, the International Medical Corps Humanitarian of the Year Award, Ebony’s John H. Johnson Award, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Chairman's Award, the Reginald F. Lewis Achievement Award, the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Robert Toigo Foundation, and the Ripple of Hope Award from Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. Smith was also awarded an honorary doctorate of International Affairs from American University's School of International Service and an honorary doctorate from Morehouse College.

In October 2019, Smith received the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, recognizing him as one of “the most charitable and visionary philanthropists in the world”. Smith was also inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame as a Class of 2019 Legend in recognition of the “profound impact he made on the State’s economic growth”, as well as using his resources and influence to “better his community”.

In May 2019, when he was at Morehouse College to receive an honorary doctorate and deliver the commencement address, he told the graduates he and his family would pay off the entire student loan debt of the 2019 Morehouse College graduating class of 396 students. "This is my class", he told the graduating seniors, "and I know my class will pay this forward". He had previously donated $1.5 million to the school in January 2019, to be used for scholarships and a park.

In 2018, Smith was the largest individual donor at the City of Hope Gala, earmarking funds towards prostate cancer treatment for black men and for breast cancer research for black women. Smith also donated $2.5 million to the Prostate Cancer Foundation to advance prostate cancer research among African-American men. Also in 2018, Smith donated $1 million to the Cultural Performance Center at the Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park in Harlem, which was subsequently named the Robert Frederick Smith Center for Performing Arts in recognition of his gift.

In 2017, Vista Equity Partners was reported to have $30 billion under management, and Smith was named as Private Equity International's 2016 Game Changer of the Year.

Smith was named as one of the "Philanthropy 50" by The Chronicle of Philanthropy in 2017. In May 2017, The Giving Pledge announced that Smith had joined its ranks as its first African-American signatory. Smith is a member of the board of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, the only authentically preserved home of a jazz musician in the country, which manages the Louis Armstrong Research Collections, the largest single jazz musician archive in the world. With Smith's leadership at the Fund II Foundation, the museum has digitized the entire collection Armstrong left behind and made it available to the public.

In 2016, Cornell University recognized Smith's leadership by naming the Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering after him.

In January 2015, Vista Equity Partners was named the best performing private equity firm for the previous 10 years, according to the HEC-Dow Jones annual ranking conducted by professor Oliver Gottschalg. Preqin, a consulting firm that tracks the industry, reports that Vista's third fund returned $2.46 for every dollar invested, better than every other big fund raised between 2006 and 2010, the boom years for private equity.

On 25 July 2015 (4 years ago)  (2015-07-25 ) , Smith married his second wife, Hope Dworaczyk, a former Playboy playmate, healthy living advocate, and fashion editor.

In October 2014, Vista closed its Fund V at $5.8 billion.

Smith has two sons with his second wife Hope: Hendrix Robert Smith, born on (2014-12-19 ) December 19, 2014 (age 5) ; and Legend Robert Smith, born on (2016-03-16 ) March 16, 2016 (age 4) .

In 2000, Smith founded Vista Equity Partners, a private equity and venture capital firm of which he is the principal founder, chairman and chief executive. As of 2019, Vista has over $46 billion in cumulative capital commitments, owns over 50 software companies and has 60,000 employees worldwide, making it the fourth largest enterprise software company after Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP. Vista has exclusively focused on the enterprise software, data and technology sectors. Among Vista's portfolio companies are Finastra, TIBCO, Solera, Infoblox, Mediaocean, Vertafore, Ping Identity, Lithium, Cvent, EAB and Datto.

After working at Air Products & Chemicals, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, and later at Kraft General Foods as a chemical engineer, where he earned two United States and two European patents, he attended Columbia Business School. Smith earned an MBA with honors specializing in finance and marketing. From 1994 to 2000, he joined Goldman Sachs in technology investment banking, first in New York City and then in Silicon Valley. He 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 the Goldman Sachs San Francisco office to focus solely on technology mergers and acquisitions.

In 1988, Smith married his first wife, fellow Cornell alum Suzanne McFayden Smith. They were married for 22 years before they separated in 2010; their divorce was finalized in 2014.

Robert Frederick Smith (born December 1, 1962) is an American billionaire businessman, philanthropist, chemical engineer, and investment banker. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. In 2018, Smith was ranked by Forbes as the 163rd richest person in America. He was No. 480 on Forbes 2018 list of the world's billionaires, with a net worth of US$6.7 billion. Smith was also included in Vanity Fair' s New Establishment List. In 2017, Smith was named by Forbes as one of the 100 greatest living business minds. He was named "Executive of the Year" by the 2019 PitchBook Private Equity Awards. The award recognized Smith's $34 million pledge to eliminate the student loans of the 2019 class of Morehouse College, stating that "even in a world where charitable giving from private equity executives is commonplace, the gesture stood out." He was also recognized as one of the 50 people "who defined 2019" on The Bloomberg 50 List In a 2018 cover story, Forbes declared Smith the wealthiest African-American, surpassing Oprah Winfrey.