Colin Powell School and Santander Bank partner to create new generation of diverse leaders in banking and finance

The Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York is pleased to announce a partnership with Santander Bank, N.A., through its Santander Universities program (“Santander”), to create the Santander Finance Boot Camp and the Santander Fellows program.

The three-year, $300,000 initiative, fully supported by Santander, is designed to prepare Colin Powell School students for careers in banking and finance by providing them with the tools they need to apply for analyst and internship experiences in their junior years. The initiative will also contribute to the diversification of the financial sector by supplying it with historically underrepresented groups, including racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, and first-generation students.

“The central mission of the Colin Powell School is to prepare some of the nation’s most talented students, representing the diversity of background and experience needed to tackle society’s challenges, to be tomorrow’s leaders” said Andrew Rich, the Richard J. Henley and Susan L. Davis Dean of the Colin Powell School. “All too often, that talent goes undiscovered because of financial and societal constraints. Santander’s investment will help change that. We look forward to deepening our partnership, with Santander employees serving as speakers and mentors to our students.”

The Santander Finance Boot Camp is an intensive, credit-bearing experience for sophomores and early juniors. The approximately 30-student cohorts will receive special instruction, mentoring, and professional development. The 12 most promising students from among each cohort will proceed to the Santander Fellows program, which includes more substantial mentoring, custom designed courses, and guidance on securing internships and jobs. The Santander Fellows also receive stipends that can be used for tuition or living expenses.

“Working for a better community is part of Santander’s purpose to help people and businesses prosper, and the Colin Powell School is a great partner. With one quarter of its students majoring in economics or business—almost 1,000 young people—we at Santander see tremendous opportunities for these students, as well as for the banking and finance sectors in general,” said Marco Antonio Achón, head of Santander Corporate & Investment Banking US. “Early interventions and investments in their education and training, augmented by the real-world experiences that retired Wall Street leaders and Santander employees can bring to the program as lecturers and facilitators, will make an important difference for the sector.”

The new program will launch in September 2021. 

About Santander Bank, N.A. 
Santander Bank, N.A. is one of the country’s largest retail and commercial banks with $89.5 billion in assets. With its corporate offices in Boston, the Bank’s approximately 9,200 employees and more than 2 million customers are principally located in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. The Bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Madrid-based Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE: SAN) - one of the most respected banking groups in the world with 149 million customers in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America. It is overseen by Santander Holdings USA, Inc., Banco Santander’s intermediate holding company in the U.S. Click here for more information on Santander Bank. 

About the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership 
Established in April 2013, the Colin Powell School is home to the social science departments at CCNY as well as the core leadership development and public service programs of the College. With almost 4,000 students, and graduating the most CCNY students annually, the Colin Powell School mission is to transform the nation’s most diverse student body into tomorrow’s global leaders. Half of our students are immigrants; most come from lower income backgrounds. More than seventy percent are first-generation college students, and eighty percent are people of color. The Colin Powell School and City College remain among the most effective engines of economic and social mobility in the United States. The School is led by a faculty dedicated to the highest standards of research and to the university’s democratic and public obligations. Read more about the Colin Powell School.

About the City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Emsi puts at $1.9 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.