Frank M. Sands, CFA

Frank is the chief investment officer and chief executive officer of Sands Capital, an institutional investment management firm focused on investing in high-quality, innovative, growth businesses, globally. Frank helped his father to create Sands Capital in 1992 and left later that year to attend business school. After working for six years at Fayez Sarofim & Co., an institutional investment management firm in Houston, Frank returned to Sands Capital in 2000 as the director of research and co-portfolio manager of the firm’s only strategy then, Select Growth. In 2004, he became president, and he became the chief investment officer and CEO in 2008.

During Frank’s tenure with the firm, assets under management have grown from approximately $900 million to $53 billion. Over the past 20 years, the firm has broadened and deepened its research and investment capabilities by globalizing its research platform and expanding its expertise in key innovative growth segments of the market. With a keen eye on preserving its culture, Frank has expanded the investment team from five professionals in 2000 to more than 60 today. Additionally, he has led the further development of Select Growth and the creation and development of the firm’s other flagship strategies, Global Growth, Emerging Markets Growth, and Global Leaders, as well as five public equity specialty strategies. Working with many other talented people at the firm, Frank founded Sands Capital Ventures, a venture capital and private equity capability that uses the same investment approach to find and invest in early-stage, innovative, private, growth businesses. These strategies now include Global Innovation, which focuses on rapidly scaling, established technology-enabled private businesses; Pulse, which focuses on innovative private life science businesses; and Global Ventures, which focuses on early-stage technology businesses. Sands Capital remains rooted in the same mission, philosophy, and six investment criteria that have been in place since the firm’s founding.

Frank earned a BA from Washington & Lee University, an MS from Johns Hopkins University, and an MBA from the UVA Darden School of Business. He is a CFA^® charterholder. He currently serves as the chair of the Darden School Foundation.