Roelof Botha

Roelof Botha
Roelof Botha, September 2010
Born	19 September 1973 (1973-09-19) (age 42)[1] Pretoria, South Africa
Alma mater	University of Cape Town Stanford Graduate School of Business
Occupation	Venture capitalist
Known for	CFO of PayPal

Roelof F. Botha^[2] (born 19 September 1973^[1]) is a venture capitalist and company director. By training, he is a qualified actuary.

Botha is a partner at Sequoia Capital and currently sits on the boards of Jawbone, Eventbrite, Evernote, Mahalo, Natera, Nimbula, Square, Tokbox, Tumblr, Weebly, Unity, Whisper and Xoom. He also works with 10gen, AssureRX, FutureAdvisor, Instagram, Mixpanel and MuSigma.^[3] He previously sat on the board of directors of Meebo and YouTube before they were each acquired by Google.

On Forbes' Midas List, an annual ranking of venture capital professionals, he ranked 22nd in 2008^[4] and 26th in 2009.^[5]

Education and career

Botha was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and at the age of six he moved to Cape Town with his parents. He was raised in Hout Bay, a suburb of Cape Town, and attended Hoërskool Jan van Riebeeck. Botha earned a BSc in Actuarial Science, Economics, and Statistics from the University of Cape Town, graduating in 1996 with the highest GPA in the history of the program. A year and a half later he became the youngest actuary (Institute of Actuaries and Faculty of Actuaries) in South African history. Botha worked as a business analyst at McKinsey & Co., Johannesburg, from August 1996 through June 1998. He then moved to the United States, where he attended the Stanford University Graduate School of Business from 1998 through 2000 and received an MBA, where he was the Henry Ford II Scholar as Stanford GSB valedictorian. In 2000, prior to his graduation from Stanford, Botha became director of corporate development for PayPal. He moved on to vice-president of finance and was named CFO in September 2001. Botha was 28 when PayPal went public in February 2002. The company was purchased by eBay in October 2002. Botha left to join Sequoia Capital in January 2003.^[6][7][8]

Family

Botha's father, also named Roelof, is an economist.^[7][9] His grandfather is Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha,^[7] a former South African politician who served as the country's foreign minister in the last years of the apartheid era. His uncle is the rock musician Piet Botha.

References

External links

• Roelof Botha Bio

Private equity and venture capital investors Investment strategy Buyout Venture Growth Mezzanine Secondaries History History of private equity and venture capital Early history of private equity Private equity in the 1980s Private equity in the 1990s Private equity in the 2000s Investor types Private equity investors Venture capitalists Corporate raiders