Excellence in Leadership Award

Stanford Graduate School of Business is pleased to announce they have selected Sandra Horbach, MBA ’87, as the 2022 Excellence in Leadership Award recipient. A program to honor Sandra took place in New York on June 23, 2022.

Sandra Horbach is a partner and co-head of US Buyout & Growth at The Carlyle Group, where she oversees Carlyle’s four largest private equity funds, with $60 billion of capital under management.

Throughout her career, Ms. Horbach has led private equity teams across industries ranging from consumer, industrials, healthcare, and aerospace to government services, technology, and financial services. Today, she oversees all industry verticals in North America after joining Carlyle in 2005 to launch and build the Consumer & Retail Team. Ms. Horbach has led many of Carlyle’s most successful consumer investments, including Dunkin’ Brands, Beats Electronics, Philosophy, The Bountiful Company, CVC Brasil, and Vogue International. She is a founding member of Carlyle’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council and has been a leader in championing diversity in the private equity industry.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Ms. Horbach spent 18 years at the private equity firm Forstmann Little. In 1992, she became the first woman to be named a partner at a major private equity firm. Prior to Forstmann Little, Ms. Horbach spent two years in the Mergers & Acquisitions department of Morgan Stanley. She earned her MBA from Stanford University and her BA in Chinese Studies from Wellesley College, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. She studied at Fudan University in Shanghai in 1980 and the National University of Taipei in 1983 as a Fulbright Scholar.

Over the course of her career, Ms. Horbach has served on many corporate and nonprofit boards. She currently serves as a director on the board of Hexaware and as a trustee at Rockefeller University and Wellesley College. Ms. Horbach was a member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council for 15 years, including serving as chair for four years. Ms. Horbach has been included in the Barron’s 100 Most Powerful Women in Finance list since its inception and the Yahoo! Finance HERoes Top 100 Women Executives List in 2020 and 2021.

Ms. Horbach is married to Steven Skoler, MBA ’86, and has two daughters.

This award marks our commitment to underscoring the importance of leadership in business by highlighting the achievements of a senior executive and Stanford GSB graduate who has made significant contributions to the corporate world and the community.