Meet Ron Fisher, the SoftBank executive who awarded WeWork a $47 billion valuation months before it delayed its $10 billion IPO
According to WeWork's IPO prospectus, Fisher is one of six WeWork board members.
Fisher says when SoftBank created the $100 billion Vision Fund with SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, it wasn't clear whether there would be enough opportunities.
"Early on, as the idea for the Vision Fund developed, there was a question as to whether we'd find enough companies and founders of the quality and scale we were after," Fisher said in an interview posted on SoftBank's website.
"What we've found is that there are more interesting opportunities than even a fund like ours can possibly support. Our objective is to partner with companies that are transforming industries across the globe, where our resources and people will make a difference for them," he says.
Ron Fisher grew up in South Africa, and received his bachelor’s degree in Commerce from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.
He then moved to New York to get his MBA from Columbia University.
He joined TRW, a high-tech parts manufacturer, in 1976, and eventually became the chief financial officer at the company. He left the position in 1990, and TRW was acquired in 2002.
From 1984 until 1990, Fisher was also the president of Interactive Systems Corporation, a UNIX software company based in Santa Monica, Calif. The company was acquired in 1992 by Kodak.
In 1990, Fisher was recruited to lead Phoenix Technologies, a system software developer for personal computers, as Chairman and CEO. He ran the company until 1994, prior to joining SoftBank.
Ron Fisher joined SoftBank in 1995 to oversee its operations and activities outside of Asia.
He founded SoftBank Capital, the now-dormant investment arm of SoftBank Group, in 1999. He served as managing partner until the group was dissolved in 2015.
He now serves as Vice Chairman and Head of Investment of SoftBank Group, which makes him one of the senior-most executives on the company’s $100 billion Vision Fund.
His biggest investment during his tenure is WeWork, the fast-growing but troubled coworking startup.
He led SoftBank’s massive $1.7 billion Series G investment in WeWork in 2017 and a subsequent $5 billion direct investment in 2019.
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