John Hayes

John currently serves as chairman of the board of Locus Robotics, and as a founding investor he has served continuously on the board since the company’s formation in 2015. Previously, John was a co-founder of Great Hill Partners, a leading private equity firm, and served as a managing partner from the firm’s inception in 1998 through 2017. During this time, he was responsible for transaction origination, investment policy, fundraising, investor relations and the general management of the firm and served as co-chair of the firm’s executive and investment committees, and now serves as a senior advisor to the firm. Over the course of his investing career, John has led investments in a wide range of industry sectors including data centers, cloud services, software, telecommunications, logistics, business services and media sectors; and has served on over 25 boards for businesses ranging from early stage to publicly traded companies.

John began his career in private equity in 1989 when he joined M/C Partners as a senior associate upon graduation from business school. Prior to business school, he spent two years at Bank of Boston, completing the bank’s training program and serving as a loan officer in the bank’s media & communications group.

John earned a degree in economics from Williams College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.