Ross Buhrdorf

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Ross Buhrdor, SFI Trustee

Ross Buhrdorf began his career in technology with positions at DataGeneral, Tandem Computers and HAL Computers after graduating from University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor’s degree in computer science. Buhrdorf held the position of VP of Engineering at Excite.com, where he managed a team of two hundred engineers globally. Buhrdorf and his team handled multiple acquisitions and drove the “Communities” area of the site handling traffic of 40 million daily page views, which ultimately aided Excite in becoming the fastest growing company in Silicon Valley in 2000.

Buhrdorf joined HomeAway shortly after its inception to oversee technology, trust and security, hosting, corporate IT, infrastructure and global customer systems. While at HomeAway Buhrdorf has assembled the development and engineering team from five employees to over 200 hundred employees world-wide. Buhrdorf was an integral piece in the integration of multiple technology systems that contribute to the company’s rapid growth. Some of the highlights of Buhrdorf’s career at HomeAway include, leading the company through it’s first Super Bowl ad campaign in February 2010. Buhrdorf and his team fortified HomeAway.com for the sizable traffic surge generated from it’s national ad. His work helped HomeAway to rank second in site traffic generated from a Super Bowl ad and second in site responsiveness and performance.

More recently Buhrdorf was awarded the 2011 CTO of the year award from Austin AIPT. Recipients of this award are recognized for the ability to use technology to better the lives of the communities they serve through leadership, innovation, creativity, impact and process transformation. Being honored by the AIPT is the most distinguished award the Austin IT community has to offer.

Buhrdorf is a life long entrepreneur and angel investor. He has invested in Capital Factory, one of the top incubators for young startups in the country where he mentors young entrepreneurs to success.