Prior to his work with Goldman Sachs, Bob Kelly was a General Partner at Ignition Partners, a Seattle-based business software venture capital firm focused on helping early stage entrepreneurs build successful, high growth companies. There, Bob focused on blockchain-based companies, the emergence of AR/VR in the business landscape, IoT security and management challenges facing enterprise customers, the emergence of business-process SaaS as cloud transforms the core of enterprise IT and the implications of ML/AI on business applications.

Before Ignition, Bob spent 21 years at Microsoft. His last role there was Corporate Vice President for the Cloud + Enterprise Business Development and Strategy team, overseeing mergers and acquisitions strategy and coordination of cross C+E strategic planning. Bob played an integral leadership role in defining how Microsoft goes to market with server and cloud computing. Since joining the company, he was instrumental in growing the Windows Server business from a relatively new product to a market leader, and helping to shape Microsoft’s $15 billion server and tools business. Prior to his last role, Bob ran business and marketing for the Azure cloud service platform.

A Massachusetts native, Bob graduated high school from Trivium School, a Catholic Liberal Arts high school that his father and friends founded in 1978. Following Trivium, Bob attended and graduated from Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire. After graduating, Bob went on to earn his master’s degree and doctorate in English literature from the University of Dallas, a very strong Catholic liberal arts college. Bob has attended Catholic schools from Kindergarten through his PhD and has always been involved in Catholic education since. The common thread in his education and his educational philosophy is the western tradition as expressed through the study of the liberal arts.

Bob also has a strongly held point of view that the best business people have a liberal arts foundation, a foundation that forms them to think, communicate and persuade. He now lives in Arizona with his wife of 34 blessed years, Annmarie. Together they have 4 great kids who are each ready to take on the world. Bob and Annmarie met at University of Dallas and have been active in leadership roles in the Seattle area, having both served on the school commission board for St Alphonsus parochial school which all of their children attended. Bob served as the President of the Seattle Legatus chapter for 2 years.  Bob also served on the board of the Discovery Institute in addition to many startup and public company boards.

From the Summer, 2016 Edition of the Wyoming Catholic College Magazine:

A Conversation with Dr. Bob Kelly, Newest Member of the College’s Board of Directors (pdf)