On 17 acres in Sonoma County’s Wine Country, Elaine and Graham Smith, former chief financial officer of Salesforce, made this home their own. It’s at once a resort-like mansion, a private retreat and a tech lover’s dream — a fitting estate for a titan like Smith. Now, it could be yours for $12.9 million.
Since moving to the U.S. from Britain some 30 years ago, Graham Smith has been a leader in the tech industry. According to his page at Axon, where Smith is currently chairman of the board, his career in software finance goes back 40 years, starting with a 10-year period at Oracle. From there, he “served as CFO at Advent Software Inc., Vitria and Nuance,” before taking on the role as CFO for Salesforce, where “his leadership and vision for high growth at scale contributed to the company’s success, growing from $750 million in revenue to over $5 billion.”
Though Graham Smith retired in 2015, he is still active and serving on multiple boards: Axon is one example, but others include GoDaddy and Procore Technologies. Previously, he helped guide Mindbody, Slack and the Sonoma Valley Education Foundation, among others, as a board member.
The year Smith retired, he and Elaine commissioned the custom build of this Sonoma estate. “We moved to Sonoma 14 years ago from the Peninsula,” Elaine Smith wrote in an email. “Graham wanted to retire from full-time work and take up various board positions, and we wanted a town that felt like ‘country,’ where the weather was warmer but a town that was also close to San Francisco and all the amenities the city offers.” They chose this location because it was close to Sonoma Plaza, but also quiet and secluded, with what Elaine described as “extraordinary views” all around…