Russ Howard

General Partner

Russ focuses his investing activities on financial technologies, tech-enabled services, and has a personal interest in sports-related analytics and technologies. At High Peaks, he has led the firm’s investments in Auterra, Widetronix and Zipmark. While at GE Equity, Russ led or co-led a number of successful investments, most notably CommerceOne ($500MM capital gain) and CyberSource ($275MM capital gain)—both went public in the late 90’s. At BCI, among the investments Russ was responsible for were Optasite (sold to SBA Communications) and Everyday Health (leading online health and wellness web site expected to go public in next 12 months).

Russ is active in both the New York City and Upstate New York markets for High Peaks and also manages the administrative aspects of the firm. He is a graduate of Williams College, where he majored in economics and was a member of the basketball and track teams. Russ also holds an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School.

I live in a small town and firmly believe in giving back to the community. Over the years I have served on the town Finance Committee, the local school endowment board and as Treasurer of the local Youth Center during its new building capital campaign. I grew up in Storrs, Connecticut where my Dad was a professor in the Engineering department at UConn—there are more than a few days when following in his engineering footsteps would have been helpful in the VC world. I remain a loyal UConn sports fan and have dabbled in many sports over the years, from windsurfing and triathlons in the 80’s, to rollerblade races in Central Park and beach volleyball tournaments on the Jersey Shore in the 90’s, to winter paintball biathlons recently. I live in the woods off a dirt road and enjoy plowing my own driveway with my Jeep Wrangler.

STUFF YOU WOULDN’T KNOW

First Job: Afternoon newspaper delivery route—getting on that bike every day rain or shine. I also ran a lawn maintenance business and my first summer learned the hard way to very carefully follow the instructions on the Scott’s fertilizer bag—too much of a good thing and one very fried, brown lawn later….

Greatest Life Experience: Currently raising three daughters to appreciate the outdoors, live an active life, and embrace math and science. Mixed results to date but we still have some time.

Most Humbling Life Experiences: Advanced Calculus II at Williams—realizing a Math major wasn’t in the cards. Trying to learn the guitar as an adult. Getting 3rd and 4th grade girls to execute a pick-and-roll…or defend one.

Random Fact: I still have a collection of every Sports Illustrated from 1972 through 1980 (minus the swimsuit issues, which at some point either my Mom or brother confiscated). Favorite cover from that era is Larry Bird and two Indiana State cheerleaders on the 1978 college basketball preview issue—“College Basketball’s Secret Weapon”.