Peter Sands (banker)

Early life and education

Peter Sands was born in the UK on 8 January 1962 to British parents who had themselves been born in Asia. His father, was born in Malaya, a British colony until 1957, where his grandfather ran rubber plantations for the London Asiatic Rubber and Produce Co and his mother was born in India, another former British colonial outpost.

Sands was taken to Malaysia as a baby and spent much of his life outside Britain, mostly in Malaysia and Singapore. He was educated at Crown Woods Comprehensive School in London, and the United World College of the Pacific in British Columbia, Canada before he went to Oxford.

Sands graduated with a BA degree from Brasenose College at Oxford in 1984. He started as a trainee at UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which he left to take a Harkness Fellowship at Harvard University to earn a master’s degree in public administration from Kennedy School of Government.

McKinsey (1988–2002)

In 1988, Sands started his career as a consultant for the management consulting firm, McKinsey in its London office. He held positions of increasing responsibilities in the firm, and in 1996 he became a partner, and later in 2000 rose to position of a director.

Standard Chartered (2002–2015)

In 2002, Standard Chartered PLC, a client of McKinsey, hired Peter Sands as its Group Finance Director. Four years later in 2006, he was chosen as its Group Chief Executive Officer.

Between 2002 and 2008, the headcount of Standard Chartered nearly doubled to 70,000 and by 2009, more than 90% of its profits came from fast-growing emerging markets mainly in Asia. Standard Chartered had weathered the economic downturn far better than most of its competitors and announced its seventh successive year of record profits in 2009. The British bank rescue plan, which was copied around the world, was based on a blueprint devised by Sands. Standard Chartered itself did not take "any taxpayer money or used any central bank liquidity schemes".

In February 2015, amidst growing shareholder calls for his resignation, Sands announced that he would be stepping down as CEO, effective June 2015. At the time of the announcement, the Wall Street Journal noted that Sands, having served at the helm of Standard Chartered for nine years, was among the "longest-serving chiefs of a major Western bank." On 26 February 2015, it was announced that his successor would be Bill Winters, former co-CEO of JP Morgan's investment banking business.

Sands is a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government of the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government and is the lead non-executive board member of the Department of Health in the United Kingdom. He is also chair of the International Commission on a Global Health Risk Framework for the Future under the auspices of the National Academy of Medicine.

Boards and honours

Sands has served on various boards and commissions, including as a director of the World Economic Forum and co-chairman of Davos, governor of the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Economic and Social Research, member of the International Advisory Board of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, board director of the Institute of International Finance, the global association of financial institutions, and chairman of their Special Committee on Effective Regulation and chairman of the International Monetary Conference.

The British government appointed him in 2009 to the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance and he served as a board member of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GBC)

He was also a member of the British Good Work Commission, which is tasked to examine the major challenges of work in the 21st century and redefine the notion of good work – work that is rewarding for business, society and individuals.

Private life

Sands is married to the writer Betsy Tobin, and they have four children. They live in Highbury in north London, and have a second home in Monmouthshire.