A Top Investment Firm Hires Tennis Players to Forget the Last Point

When asked why Thoma Bravo holds so much tennis talent, A.J. Rohde, a senior partner at the investment firm, said it has become a hiring edge. "Play the next ball, play the next ball," Rohde said. "You got smacked on that point. You got hit with an overhead, like next ball."

The pattern traces to Orlando Bravo, who grew up in Puerto Rico, trained at an academy in Florida, ranked among the top 40 juniors nationally, and played at Brown. People who know Bravo understand he is, in Rohde's words, "just wired a certain way," and people wired that way prefer the company of others wired the same way. In Rohde's phrase, tennis players tend to be resilient and "a little bit screw loose."

An early cornerstone was Holden Spate, a partner at the firm who interviewed Rohde for his job. Spate grew up in Baton Rouge, played at Dartmouth, and also ranked among the top 40 juniors. When Spate learned in the interview that Rohde had played at Villanova, Spate said, "Wow, maybe there's a little more of this to go around." Rohde was hired.

At first those hires happened because a tennis background created an instant connection. Over time the firm noticed a pattern, with strong investment results coming from people with that background. Rohde describes the link as a resilience carried from tennis to the investment business.

Finance executive Jeff Appel later fed the effort by sending top players from schools like Virginia and Stanford for interviews, and several joined the firm. Rohde says the firm became more methodical about hiring players with that background after seeing the pattern.