Orlando Bravo with Verónica Toro Arana Puerto Rico’s 1st Woman Olympic Rower

Orlando Bravo is is a Founder and Managing Partner of Thoma Bravo. He led Thoma Bravo’s early entry into software buyouts and built the firm into one of the top private equity firms in the world. Today, Orlando directs the firm’s strategy and investment decisions in accordance with its principles of partnership, innovation, and performance. Orlando has overseen over 300 software acquisitions conducted by the firm, representing more than $85 billion in transaction value. Forbes named him “Wall Street’s best dealmaker” in 2019, and he was part of Thomson Reuters “Eight Buyout Pros to Watch” in 2009.

Orlando was born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Brown University in 1992 and earned a JD from Stanford Law School and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1998.

He is the Founder and Chairman of the Bravo Family Foundation, the mission of which is to provide access and opportunities to young adults in Puerto Rico. Orlando directs the organization’s various programs and initiatives to promote entrepreneurship, community-based leadership and economic development in Puerto Rico. After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, he spearheaded a humanitarian mission to remote communities on the island. In 2019, Orlando committed $100 million to the Foundation’s Rising Entrepreneurs Program (REP) with the goal of fostering entrepreneurship in Puerto Rico.

Orlando is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Corporation of Brown University.  Read more about Orlando in this Forbes 2019 article. Follow Orlando on Twitter @OrlandoBravoTB and LinkedIn

Verónica Tora Arana is born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, She is the first woman Olympic Rower for Puerto Rico. She graduated from MIT in 2016, where she studied Biological Engineering and started rowing. Currently, she is an MD student at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She is a part of the Cardiovascular Biomechanics Computation Lab at Stanford, where she researches Pulmonary Valve Replacement Outcomes in children with Tetralogy of Fallot. She hopes to become a Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgeon and help to serve this patient population on the island.

 

She began competing as the Woman Single sculler for Puerto Rico in 2014. She is named Rowing athlete of the year for Puerto Rico in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2019. In 2019, I made it to the A Final at the Pan-American Games. She has trained in the boathouse featured in The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

On March 5, 2021 at the Lagõa de Freitas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, she became Puerto Rico's first woman Olympic rower. She aims to convey: YES WE CAN, as women and as Puerto Ricans.

Follow Verónica on LinkedIn and Instagram. Help Verónica's GoFundMe on her way to the Olympics2021