President Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras (BYSO)
Managing Director of Cards Division (USA)
Sovereign Bank - Santander US

Eduardo Tobon is the current President of BYSO. As the father of young children, he strongly believes in the importance of music education and making music accessible to all children. Under his leadership, BYSO embarked on strengthening its Intensive Community Program (ICP) so that with the proper training every child with dedication and interest has the potential to become an accomplished musician. After more than eleven years, hundreds of students from inner city communities in Boston that lack the financial resources to study classical music outside of their school curriculum have been part of ICP. Prior to ICP, only 1% of BYSO students represented inner-city communities in Boston. As of 2010, BYSO’s student body diversity has reached a high of 21%.  Currently, there are a total of 75 students in ICP, the oldest in 12th grade and the youngest in first grade. As President of BYSO, Eduardo has also expanded its board and brought additional talent to the organization. He made sure that Federico Cortese, Music Director, leveraged his ten year tenure with the organization and other local orchestras; and he signed him for another five years.

Eduardo is also the Head of the Cards Division within Sovereign Bank Santander. He is managing a team of 21 professionals and a portfolio of debit and credit cards (issuing) and merchant card acceptance (acquiring) that rank in the top 20 in the United States. The Cards Division is a Global Division for Santander and Eduardo works very closely with colleagues in multiple countries including Spain. In essence, his main challenge has been to grow the bank’s current Debit Card business in the United States. Additionally, he is building on the bank’s Credit Card and Merchant Card businesses by leveraging Santander’s global expertise and focus.

Previously, he served as Director, Senior Vice President, of Sovereign Bank’s Strategic Alliances and International Cash Management within the Corporate Banking Division. In that position, he was in charge of some large and complex businesses as well as some startups for Sovereign. Under his leadership, Sovereign developed multiple strategic alliances and a portfolio of more than 75,000 clients that included  Sovereign Merchant Services, an alliance with First Data; Sovereign Payroll Services, an alliance with ADP; and Sovereign Business and Corporate Cards, an alliance with American Express. Within its International Division, Sovereign has a growing number of transactional clients (multi-nationals) in the USA from dozens of countries including Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Chile that were managed by Eduardo’s team with the support and assistance of Banco Santander. Additionally, he was also in charge of a startup, Sovereign Bank’s Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), aimed at serving all the custodian needs of insurance carriers, insurance brokers, business clients and individuals that utilize qualified High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP) in conjunction with HSAs.

Eduardo joined Sovereign Bank in January of 2001. Previously, he was a strategic consultant at two McKinsey legacy firms --Mitchell Madison Group and AT Kearney. His prior experience also includes senior management positions in planning and strategy at Procter & Gamble and Lithonia Lighting in Latin America. He also has been a notable speaker at national and international conferences.

Eduardo currently serves on several boards including the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras (BYSO) as President, the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), The Partnership, and the Advisory Board of Cambridge College. In Boston, he has been part of the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting (ALPFA) as former President and founder of its local Corporate Advisory Board where he continues to be involved. He also has been part of The Emerging Leaders Program of Boston and The Partnership for several years. Eduardo truly enjoys giving back to the community and mentoring the next generation of leaders from diverse backgrounds.

He lives in Needham, MA with his wife and their three children.