Suhail R. Rizvi is an Indian-American businessman and co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Rizvi Traverse Management LLC. He has a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

Economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

from the

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School ( ) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia. Established in 1881 through a donation from Joseph Wharton, a co-founder of Bethlehem Steel, the Wharton ...

, and sits on the Wharton Undergraduate Executive Board. A venture capitalist, his investments include

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, Flipboard and

Square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

. Due to his large stake in Twitter, both personally and for other investors, he was the subject of media scrutiny at the time of Twitter's IPO; he is notoriously private. Along with

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

, Rizvi has invested in telecommunications and entertainment. In April 2007, Rizvi Traverse acquired an equity ownership stake in Summit Entertainment, the studio behind the successful “Twilight” series. In January 2012, Lions Gate announced that it had acquired Summit Entertainment for $412.5 million. In 2005, his firm acquired controlling interest in International Creative Management, but sold its stake. After management problems with the

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

talent agency, Rizvi Traverse Management exchanged its equity, "for a combination of cash, preferred non-voting shares and an ongoing interest in certain assets of the company." The firm also helped

Hugh Hefner Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of ''Playboy'' magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles. Hefner extended the ''Playboy ...

buy back Playboy Enterprises in 2011. In November 2015, the company announced the acquisition of 3D cinema technology firm

RealD RealD Inc. is a Privately held company, privately held company known for its RealD 3D system, which is used for projecting 3D film, films in stereoscopic 3D using circularly polarized light. The company was founded in 2003 by Michael Lewis (ent ...

for $551 million. His father Syied Humayoun Raza Rizvi, who died in July 2016, was a professor of psychology at Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls, Iowa. His brother, Ashraf, is a hedge fund manager.

References

External links

Rizvi Traverse website
Living people American computer businesspeople American financial businesspeople American venture capitalists Wharton School alumni 1965 births Chief investment officers {{US-business-bio-1960s-stub