Standard Chartered executive ready to tackle new challenges head on

Dubai: Peter Sands was appointed Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered Plc in November 2006. He joined the Board of the bank as Group Finance Director in May 2002. Before his appointment as Group chief executive he was responsible for finance, strategy, risk and technology and operations.

Sands is also lead non-executive director of the Board of the Department of Health. Prior to joining Standard Chartered, Sands was a director with worldwide consultants McKinsey & Company. He had been with McKinsey since 1988 where he worked extensively in the banking and technology sectors in a wide range of international markets. He was elected a partner in 1996 and became a director in 2000. Sands graduated from Oxford University and holds a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University, where he was a Harkness Fellow. After going through a decade long uninterrupted growth, the bank is faced with the challenge of keeping up the growth momentum in the face of economic slowdown in some of its key markets. Sands is not complacent about the challenges the bank faces in these markets. But he believes that there are still enormous new opportunities in the emerging markets.