Heidi Roizen (born 1958) is a Silicon Valley executive, venture capitalist, and entrepreneur. She is known for speaking out against the harassment of women in technology, having herself received harassment in the past.

Early life

Roizen was born in 1958 in Stanford, California. She graduated from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1980 with a bachelor's degree in English and earned her MBA from the

Stanford University Graduate School of Business The Stanford Graduate School of Business (also known as Stanford GSB) is the graduate business school of Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective business sc ...

three years later.

Career

From 1983 to 1996, Roizen co-founded, together with her brother

Peter Roizen Peter Roizen (born 1946) is a software developer, game creator and entrepreneur. He was co-founder of T/Maker Company. Life and work Roizen was born in 1946 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He graduated from Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, Ca ...

, the T/Maker Company, which made software for

CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initial ...

and MS-DOS computers, and later for the Apple Macintosh. From 1987 until 1994, Roizen also served on the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of the

Software Publishers Association The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new na ...

and was its president from 1988 to 1990. From 1996 to 1997, Roizen was Vice President of World Wide Developer Relations for Apple Inc. She also served on the board of

Great Plains Software Great Plains Software was an accounting software company located in Fargo, North Dakota, whose products focused on small to medium-sized businesses. It was founded in 1981, went public in 1997, and was purchased by Microsoft in 2001 for $1.1 bill ...

from 1997 until its acquisition by Microsoft in 2001. Roizen also served as the Public Governor of the Pacific Exchange and on the executive committee of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Roizen entered the venture capital world in 1999, first as a Managing Director of SOFTBANK Venture Capital (which became Mobius Venture Capital), from 1999 to 2007, and then in 2012 she joined global investor Draper Fisher Jurvetson as a venture partner. She also launched her own entrepreneurial venture, SkinnySongs, In September 2008, the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives awarded Heidi Roizen their annual Achievement Award. In June 2009, Roizen was elected to the Board of Directors of TiVo (NASDAQ:TIVO), and in September, 2012, she was elected to the board of DMGT (LSE:DMGT), the London-based global media and information company which owns the ''Daily Mail'' and ''Mail Online.'' At the time she was elected, she became the first female director in the company's 116-year history. In 2010, Roizen was named a Lecturer and Entrepreneurship Educator at Stanford University, where she teaches the course 'Spirit of Entrepreneurship' in the MS&E (Engineering) department. Roizen was awarded 2018 Financial Woman of the Year by Financial Women of San Francisco.

References

External links

Heidi Roizen’s personal websiteForum for Women Entrepreneurs & Executives Gives Roizen Achievement Award for 2008Interview on Fresh Dialogues Nov 2008 re. Skinny Songs Fresh Dialogues Interview Dec 2008 re. Tips for EntrepreneursEntrepreneurial Heroes
podcast interview with

NCWIT The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works to increase the meaningful participation of girls and women in computing. NCWIT was founded in 2004 by Lucinda (Lucy) Sanders, Dr. Tel ...

Forbes.com - Untold Stories About Steve Jobs: Friends and Colleagues Share Their Memories Forbes.com - Heidi Roizen, Looking Outside Silicon Valley 'Cocoon,' Joins Daily Mail's Board Forbes.com - How To Build A Unicorn From Scratch -- And Walk Away With Nothingmedium.com - What *not* to do in a venture pitch meeting
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roizen, Heidi 1958 births Living people American computer businesspeople Apple Inc. employees Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni People from Stanford, California American venture capitalists American women investors 21st-century American businesswomen 21st-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesswomen 20th-century American businesspeople