Private Equity Conference

Carl Thoma is a founder and managing partner at Thoma Bravo. He was a co-founder and managing director at Golder, Thoma, Cressey, Rauner and its predecessor funds since 1980. He began his career at First Chicago Equity Group where he helped build one of the largest and most active private equity firms in the country. He is a recognized pioneer of the buy-and-build strategy that is the foundation of Thoma Bravo’s strategy today.

Carl is an avid art collector, which he parallels to the process of acquiring, partnering with, and refining a company. Carl received a BS in accounting and agriculture economics from Oklahoma State University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

He is currently on the boards of the McKnight Center for the Performing Arts, New Mexico School for the Arts, the Phoenix Art Museum and SITE Santa Fe. Together with his wife Marilynn, Carl runs the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation, a grant-making organization dedicated to sharing its collection and supporting museums, projects and individuals pursuing innovative ideas in the visual arts: www.thomafoundation.org.

Pete Stavros joined KKR in 2005 and is co-head of global private equity. This includes oversight across Europe, Asia and the Americas and covers traditional large and mid-cap private equity, impact, core and growth equity. Prior to this role, Pete served as co-head of the firm’s Americas Private Equity platform. He is a member of several investment and management committees at KKR and has also served as co-chair of the firm’s global Inclusion and Diversity Council. As an investor, he has helped lead a number of successful investments across sectors and sizes, including HCA Healthcare, Nielsen, Gardner Denver / Ingersoll Rand, Capsugel, Capital Safety, Hyperion, Flow Control Group, Charter Next Generation, Minnesota Rubber and Plastics, Geostabilization International, Crosby Group and CHI Overhead Doors. Prior to becoming co-head of Americas Private Equity, Pete led the industrials industry team, where he pioneered an innovative employee engagement and ownership model. This approach has been successfully implemented at a number of companies and has positively impacted tens of thousands of employees. Pete is the founder and chairman of Ownership Works, a non-profit focused on broadening corporate ownership and enhancing the financial resiliency of the workforce. Prior to joining KKR, Pete was an investor with GTCR Golder Rauner, where he was an investor in the healthcare sector. He holds a BS in chemistry, magna cum laude, from Duke University and an MBA with high distinction, Baker Scholar, from Harvard Business School.

Rachel Arnold has over two decades of experience investing in and scaling growth at market leading software companies. Rachel is co-head of the Vista Endeavor Funds and serves as a member of Vista’s Executive Committee, the firm’s governing and decision-making body for matters affecting its overall management and strategic direction, and Vista’s Private Equity Management Committee, the firm’s decision-making body for matters affecting Vista’s overall private equity platform. She currently sits on the boards of BigTime, BlueConic, Jebbit, RadarFirst, Resilinc and Tripleseat, and is involved with the firm’s investments in Benchmark Gensuite, COMPLY, Dispatch, Innovapptive, mabl and WorkTango. She was actively involved with the firm’s investments in AGDATA, Autotask, BigMachines, Bonterra, Bullhorn, Kibo, Lanyon, Lone Wolf, Naviga, PeopleAdmin, Relias Learning, SecureLink and Zapproved. Rachel was named one of GrowthCap’s Top Women Leaders in Growth Investing in 2022 and 2023, and to Buyouts’ Women in Private Equity Class of 2022. 

Prior to joining Vista Equity Partners in 2012, Rachel held executive positions at four Vista companies. Her roles have included interim CEO at Bonterra (formerly Social Solutions), senior vice president of engineering, product management and marketing at Mitratech, vice president of product management and strategy at MicroEdge, and running business development and channel programs at SRC Software. Outside of her Vista tenure, Rachel served as strategy director at Interbrand and as an equity research associate covering enterprise software at Pacific Crest. 

Rachel is passionate about giving back to her community. In 2017, she co-founded the Austin chapter of Friends of the Children, a nonprofit organization focused on breaking the cycle of generational poverty through transformative work with high-risk youth. Rachel is the past chair and current board member for the Friends of the Children Austin chapter and also serves as treasurer and trustee for The Contemporary Austin. She previously served on the National Board for Friends of the Children. Rachel earned a BA in international business from Linfield College.