Anita Sands
Dr. Anita M. SandS is an Irish businesswoman, academic and speaker, resident in New York. 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 Citibank, leaving in early 2009
A Fulbright and O'Reilly Scholar, she was also Secretary to the Board of the Ireland Fund of Canada, has been an advisor to the Toronto Board of Trade, and served 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 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, handling derivatives analysis at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Canada's fifth largest general bank, in Toronto, and later managing treasury research there.
She then joined the even larger Royal Bank of Canada, also based in Toronto, and was promoted to senior vice-president in late 2007, the youngest ever SVP at RBC. Sands' role was Head of Innovation and Process Design, with responsibility for innovation, research, consulting, six sigma and "business process offshoring" and she also sat on the enterprise strategy and other committees, chaired the innovation council and drove some initiatives to bring the bank into line with aspects of Web 2.0.
At end September 2008, she was appointed as a Managing Director, and Head of Transformation Management, at Citigroup, which she left in early 2009.
Voluntary work and interests
Sands was for some years a member of the board at the Ireland Fund of Canada (where she is board secretary) and Women in Capital Markets. She has served as a director of the Ireland Park Foundation (dedicated to building a Canadian memorial to Irish immigrants who fled the Great Famine), serving as a volunteer coordinator, and contributing (with Douglas Batson of Motts) over 30,000 dollars. She has been a board member of Ireland-Canada Chamber of Commerce (of Toronto) and sat on a Toronto Board of Trade advisory committee On It. She has also supported the Canadian internship organisation, CareerEdge, and held an adjunct faculty position at the Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University.
Other interests include piano playing and public speaking.