Peter Solvik is an American venture capitalist in technology companies. He was formerly a chief information officer at

Cisco Systems, Inc Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, softw ...

Education

Solvik got his undergraduate degree in 1980 from the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

, the school's first graduate with a dual degree in business and computer science.

Career

Information technology

After graduating, Solvik joined

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...

, and moved to Apple as the personal computing sector took off, where he ran its

AppleLink AppleLink was the name of both Apple Computer's online service for its dealers, third-party developers, end users, and the client software used to access it. Prior to the commercialization of the Internet, AppleLink was a popular service for Mac ...

group. After 11 years at Apple, he served as Senior Vice President and CIO of

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, m ...

, Inc. from 1993 until 2002.Burke, Stephen (29 December 1999)
An Interview With Peter Slovik - Cisco
''CRN'' While at Cisco, Solvik was an executive sponsor of internal initiatives such as the creation of Status Agent, which allowed customers to track the status of their own orders online. He was instrumental in Cisco's acquisition of over 100 companies, including Calico Technology. In August 2000, ''

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...

'' recognized Solvik as a "standout" CIO for his leadership of Cisco's e-sales and supply chain management initiatives, which had resulted in a reduction of $1.5 billion in costs by using Internet technologies across a wide range of areas, including human resources and manufacturing. In December 2000,

Network World International Data Group (IDG, Inc.) is an American market intelligence and demand generation company focused on the technology industry. IDG, Inc.'s mission is centered around supporting the technology industry through research, data, market ...

named him one of its "25 most powerful people in networking". That same year, ''B to B'' magazine named him one of its "Top 25 E-Champions".

Venture capital

Solvik is co-founder and Managing Director of Jackson Square Ventures (fka Sigma West), a venture capital firm focused on B2B SaaS and Marketplaces. Previously, he was a Managing Director at Sigma Partners, which he joined in 2002. Prior to Sigma, he also served on the Board of Directors of

myCFO Harris myCFO is the American wealth management unit of BMO Harris Bank serving high-net-worth individuals and families. In 2002, Harris acquired certain assets of myCFO, Inc., founded by James H. Clark, in a $30 million deal. Harris myCFO ...

. Solvik's successful investments include DocuSign; his fund's $17.5 million investment in that company was valued at $687 million when the company when public in 2018.

Education

Career

Information technology

Venture capital

References

Further reading