Anita Sands

Infobox Person
name = Anita Sands (Dr.)


image_size =
caption =
birth_date =
birth_place =
residence = New York, USA
nationality = Irish
education = Queen's University Belfast (to Ph.D.), Carnegie Mellon University
employer = Citigroup
occupation = Managing Director
home_town = Drogheda, Ireland
boards =
spouse =
partner =

Dr. Anita M. Sands is an Irish businesswoman, academic and public speaker, resident in New YorkLinkedIn, personal (self-written) profile: [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/9/989/579] ] . Appointed in 2007 as the youngest ever senior vice-president at the Royal Bank of Canada, she moved at end September 2008 to Citigroup in New York as a Managing Director and "Head of Transformation Management" at CitibankLinkedIn, personal (self-written) profile: [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/9/989/579] ] .

A Fulbright and O'Reilly Scholar, she is also an advisor to the Toronto Board of Trade, Secretary to the Board of the "Ireland Fund of Canada" and serves with a number of other bodies.

Life

Sands grew up around Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland, the daughter of Con and Imelda Sands. The family residence is in the small village of Sandpit, 4 miles north of Drogheda, close to Termonfeckin and Clogherhead.

Academic career

Sands took her secondary education at "Our Lady's College" at Greenhills, near Drogheda, and while there won an award in the Young Scientists' Competition. She sang and played the violin, often at services at the local Augustinian church, during both school and college years.

She studied physics and applied maths at Queen's University Belfast, achieving top honours at undergraduate level, and progressing to a Masters, and then a Ph.D. in Atomic and Molecular Physics.

As one of the early beneficiaries of the O'Reilly Foundation's Scholarship Programme, and as a Fulbright Scholar, she then studied for a Masters in Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, winning top distinction, and becoming Executive Director of the university's Software Industry Center. Supported by a Sloan Foundation research fellowship, Sands was also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto.

Business career

Sands began her banking career in 2004, managing treasury research and handling derivatives analysis at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Canada's fifth largest general bank, in Toronto.

She then joined the even bigger Royal Bank of Canada, also based in Toronto, and was promoted to senior vice-president in late 2007, as "Head of Innovation and Process Design", with responsibility for innovation, research, consulting, "six sigma" and "business process offshoring". Within the bank, she sat on the enterprise strategy and other committees, and chaired the innovation council. She also drove some initiatives to bring the bank into Web 2.0.

At end September 2008, she was appointed as a Managing Director, and "Head of Transformation Management", at Citigroup [Standard & Poors: CapitalIQ, 30 September 2008, retrieved 2 October 2008 [http://powermoves.capitaliq.com/index.php/2008/09/30/citigroup-appoints-anita-sands/] ] , working with former manager, Marty Lippert, now Citigroup's Chief Operations and Technology Officer [banktech.com, retrieved 2 October 2008 [http://www.banktech.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210603441&pgno=2] ] .

Voluntary work and interests

Sands is a member of the board at the Ireland Canada Chamber of Commerce (of Toronto), the Ireland Fund of Canada (where she is board secretary), the Ireland Park Foundation (a memorial to Irish immigrants who fled the Great Famine) and Women in Capital Markets, and is on a Toronto Board of Trade advisory committee on IT.

Other interests include piano playing and public speaking.

ources

* [http://www.oreillyfoundation.ie/index.php?c_id=8&s_id=4 Anita Sands profile and photo at the O'Reilly Foundation official site]
* [http://www.innovationconference.net/asp/default.asp?p=17 Anita Sands profile at the 3rd International Conference on Services and Innovation, 7-7 Nov 2007, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin]
* [http://www.banktech.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210603441&pgno=2 Details of new role late 2008, approach and interests]

Notes and references