Byron Sanders has been named as the next president and CEO of the Dallas, TX-based education nonprofit, Big Thought. Sanders comes to Big Thought from U.S. Trust, where he worked for three years with his most recent position being vice president and institutional client advisor. Before his time at U.S. Trust, he served as executive director of the Dallas Education Foundation for more than two years. Sanders also worked as a regional director and then executive vice president of the educational services company, Group Excellence, from 2009 to 2012. During his time there, Group Excellence was named as the fifth fastest growing education company in the nation and was included in the prestigious Inc. 500 list. While working in various positions in the education and financial sectors over the years, Sanders has also served on numerous boards such as those of the ChildCareGroup, Social Ventures Partners Dallas, CitySquare and United Way’s Community Impact Council. He has also already been a board member of Big Thought after working with it in several different capacities since as early as 2008.
A Dallas-native, Sanders went out-of-state to attend the University of Tulsa, from which he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 2006. His early career path after college brought him into the pharmaceutical industry, first working as a healthcare representative at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. Having a change of heart, he then decided to move into the education sector at age 25 and now takes over one of Dallas’s largest education nonprofits at age 34. In 2014, Sanders received the Dallas Business Journal’s Minority Business Leaders and 40 Under 40 awards. He was also one of only 60 people to become a Presidential Leadership Scholar in 2017. Byron Sanders succeeds Giselle Antoni, who has led Big Thought for 23 years.
