Sandra Odendahl

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Sandra Odendahl

Director of Corporate Environmental Affairs, Royal Bank of Canada

As the Director of Corporate Environmental Affairs at RBC, Sandra leads a team responsible for global strategy and leadership in the areas of environmental credit risk management, environmental products and services, bank-wide environmental programs, and external relations related to corporate sustainability issues.

Sandra's education and professional experience blends science, technology and finance to solve challenging environmental issues and provide opportunities for environmental sustainability for RBC and partner organizations.

Prior to entering the banking sector, Sandra was a research scientist with Noranda Inc. in Montreal, and then an environmental consultant in Toronto and Vancouver, specializing in Environmental Impact Assessments for resource sector development projects in Canada and Southeast Asia. She joined RBC in 1997 as a resource sector analyst, and then led the bank's Environmental Risk Management department from March 2000 to August 2005. Having left in September 2005 to become the Director of Corporate Environmental Program at another bank, she returned to RBC two years later as the Director of Corporate Environmental Affairs.

From 2005 to 2009, Sandra chaired the North American Task Force of the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI). Sandra is presently on the advisory boards of Carbon Talks, Toronto Greenhouse, and the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at the University of Toronto. She was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund in 2011, where she also chairs its Grants Committee, and she was recently appointed to the Board of Pollution Probe.

Born in Ottawa, Sandra has an M.A.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toronto. Sandra is a licensed professional engineer, and earned her CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) designation in 2007.

She lives with her husband and two children in Toronto.