William K. Bowes Jr., MBA 1952

Founding Partner, U.S. Venture Partners

Earlier Education: B.A., Economics, Stanford University, 1950

On Leadership: “Don’t run out of money.”

Bill Bowes has had three careers — each leading to the next. Twenty-five years of investment banking in San Francisco gave him a close view of and access to Silicon Valley’s burgeoning venture capital industry.

Founding U.S. Venture Partners in 1981 provided Bowes the opportunity to help create, rather than merely finance, initiatives at their earliest stages. The firm has shaped the software, health-care, e-commerce, and consumer branding arenas by building companies such as Sun Microsystems, Callaway Golf, and Ross Stores. Bowes also played a key role at Amgen, serving as the first chairman and treasurer of what has become the world’s largest biotech company.

Venture philanthropy followed naturally for Bowes, who concentrated his philanthropic investing in three areas: start-ups, financing initiatives inside established institutions, and larger transformative investments in institutions at inflection points in their missions.

Bowes’s board and advisory council positions represent his broad interests, including the UCSF Foundation, San Francisco’s Exploratorium, Grace Cathedral, the Environmental Defense Fund, Stanford’s Bio-X, the Asian Art Museum, QB3, the United Religions Initiative, the Institute for Systems Biology, SFJazz, the Xoma Corporation, Creative Capital, Harvard Business School’s Visiting Committee, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.