Standard Chartered (the Group) announced on January 13 the appointment of Dr. Sandie Okoro as Group General Counsel. She will be reporting to Group CEO, Bill Winters and be based in the UK.
Sandie Okoro will join the Standard Chartered Group in early-April 2022. She replaces David Fein, who retired as Group General Counsel at the end of 2021. He has remained with the Group in an advisory capacity and will ensure a smooth handover.
Standard Chartered is a leading international banking group, operating in 59 countries, serving customers in a further 85 countries and employing 85,000 people. The group is listed on the London and Hong Kong stock exchanges.
A British national, born to a father from Nigeria and a mother from Trinidad, Sandie Okoro is, since February 2017, Senior Vice President and World Bank Group General Counsel, and Vice President for Compliance at the World Bank, the first black woman to hold this role. She is also Chair of the World Bank Group Anti-Racism Task Force.
Speaking about the appointment, Bill Winters said: “We’re delighted to have a General Counsel of Sandie’s calibre joining Standard Chartered. Her extensive experience, industry achievements and accomplishments, and focus on championing social justice make her ideally suited for the role. I look forward to her valuable contributions in supporting our ambitious strategy.”
Dr. Okoro said: “I am excited to be joining the team at Standard Chartered, which I have long admired for the breadth of services it offers across the globe, and the reputation it has built of innovation and putting people and their communities first. I am also thankful for an incredible five years at the World Bank Group, where I was humbled to work alongside colleagues and peers on some of the most urgent global development priorities. As I close an important chapter in international development, I look forward to starting a new one and contributing to Standard Chartered’s goals.”
Experienced lawyer
Dr. Sandie Okoro is currently Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the World Bank Group, and Vice President for Compliance at the World Bank, the first black woman to hold this role. Sandie Okoro is the principal advisor and spokesperson on all legal matters for the world’s leading development finance institution. She also heads the Compliance Vice Presidency that is responsible for developing and overseeing the World Bank data privacy framework based on the World Bank Group Policy on Personal Data Privacy. The two Vice Presidencies are separate and distinct. In her role as Chair for the World Bank Group Anti-Racism Task Force, Sandie is bringing the topics of race and racial equity at the forefront of Bank Group staff and operational matters, convening discussions and proposing action steps to help ensure racism and racial inequalities have no place in the institution, its operations, and the countries it serves.
Prior to joining the World Bank, Sandie Okoro was General Counsel for HSBC Global Asset Management and Global General Counsel at Barings.
Sandie Okoro studied law and politics at Birmingham University. She later studied at the Inns of Court School of Law, now part of the City University of London, and joined Lincoln’s Inn, where she qualified as a solicitor in 1988.
Personality with multiple awards and recognitions
Sandie is an Honorary Bencher of Middle Temple in the United Kingdom (2018) and was named one of the Upstanding 100 Leading Ethnic Minority Executives (2016), Top 20 Global General Counsel (2019) by the Financial Times, and was recognized as Britain’s 5th most influential person of African and African Caribbean heritage by Powerlist (2018). She holds Honorary Doctorates in Law from City University London (2014), London Southbank University (2018), and her alma mater Birmingham University (2019). Sandie received a lifetime achievement award from the UK Black Solicitors Network (2016), was named one of the Power 100 Women by City A.M. and 100 Women to Watch by Female FTSE Board.
Sandie was appointed inaugural Chair of the UK-based charity WOW-Women of the World Festivals in June 2021. She received the Howard University 2019 Vanguard Women Award for her accomplishments as a woman of colour who has blazed the trail and her commitment to mentoring young women and advancing the rights of women and girls globally. She is also the recipient of the Beyond the Glass Ceiling Award presented by the Leadership Institute for Women of Color Attorneys (2019), the Chambers 100 Outstanding Global General Counsel (2019), and an honoree of Harvard Law’s 7th Annual International Women’s Day Portrait Exhibit (2020).
Sandie is an ardent defender and champion for women empowerment, gender equality, and justice for all. Outside of work, Sandie is a Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and was a council member of the human rights organization JUSTICE, Ambassador for the Law Society’s Diversity Access Scheme and sat on the Equality Standards Panel of the Premier League.
