Peter Wendell

Peter Wendell, a Senior Advisor at WestBridge Capital, is based out of Silicon Valley. He first began to informally advise the Advisory Principals in 2003 and, with the raising of WestBridge Crossover Fund in 2011, assumed a more formal role as a Senior Advisor and member of the Board of Directors of the Fund.

Peter is the founder (in 1982) of Sierra Ventures, a Menlo Park, California technology- oriented venture capital firm. Sierra’s first six funds (Sierra Ventures I – VI), all Sierra funds organized with Peter as one of the lead Managing Directors, collectively called capital of $440 million and distributed net proceeds to limited partners after carry and fees in excess of $1 billion. Peter has served on more than 25 corporate boards of directors, including more than 10 public company boards. Peter also co-teaches “Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital,” a popular course at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Peter has held a faculty appointment at Stanford since 1991, teaching more than 2,000 Stanford MBAs.

Peter has been recognized by “Forbes” magazine as one of the 100 best technology venture investors in the United States and named one of the 15 venture capitalists on “Upside” magazine’s Elite 100 list of influential U.S. leaders in technology, finance, and business. In addition to his venture capital activities, Peter also serves, since 2003, on the board of directors of Merck & Co., Inc (MRK-NYSE) where he completed a four- year term chairing the board’s audit committee and currently serves on the compensation and research committees.

Prior to founding the first Sierra fund, he was employed by IBM for 10 years. During an educational leave from IBM, Peter attended Harvard Business School where he received an MBA with distinction. During this time, he also worked for McKinsey & Company. Peter holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree, magna cum laude, from Princeton University.

He is currently serving as a Charter Trustee of Princeton University, having been initially appointed in 2001. He has also completed a 10-year term as a member of the board of directors of the Princeton University Investment Company (Princo), the organization responsible for Princeton’s endowment. During the six years Peter chaired the Princo board, Princo’s professional executives grew the University’s endowment from $8 billion to over $16 billion. He has also served as a Trustee of ARTstor, a Mellon Foundation initiative chaired by Harvard’s former president Neil Rudenstine.

Peter has served as an officer and member of the board of directors of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists, as a member of the venture capital committee of Stanford University’s Athletic Investment Endowment, as a member of the Visiting Committee at Harvard Business School, as a director of San Francisco’s Exploratorium, and on the board of St. Luke’s Parish School in San Francisco. He has received the National Venture Capital Association’s American Spirit Award for applying his business skills in a manner that has created outstanding contributions to society.