Education
University of Cape Town. Stanford Graduate School of Business. Stanford University.
University of Cape Town. Stanford Graduate School of Business. Stanford University.
By training, he is a qualified actuary. He also works with 10gen, AssureRX, FutureAdvisor, Instagram, Mixpanel and MuSigma. 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 and 26th in 2009.
He was raised in Hout Bay, a suburb of Cape Town, and attended Hoƫrskool January van Riebeeck. Botha earned a Bachelor of Science in Actuarial Science, Economics, and Statistics from the University of Cape Town, graduating in 1996 with the highest Grade Point Average 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 & Company, 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 Master of Business Administration, 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 Chief Financial Officer 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. Botha"s father, also named Roelof, is an economist.