Keith Sanford has been president and CEO of the Tennessee Aquarium since 2016, after working in a variety of roles at First Tennessee Bank over 36 years, including serving as market president. A graduate of Washington and Lee University and The Graduate School of Banking of the South, he was named Chattanooga Area Manger of the Year in 2014. Sanford has served as a volunteer and board member for many local nonprofit organizations, and is founding director and chair of the Tivoli foundation, as well as board chair of Chattanooga Tourism Co.
What books have you read and recommended to others that influence your leadership style?
Early in my banking career, I read books no one else wanted to read on economics and financial analysis. Then as I became more of a salesperson, I read Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and several sales strategy and relationship-focused books. Recently with my change in careers, I read the book “The Zookeepers’ War” by J.W. Mohnhaupt, which was turned into a movie about the heads of the East and West German zoos during the Cold War.
What books have you recently read for pleasure that you’re telling others about?
I am currently reading Barack Obama’s new book “A Promised Land.” I read anything by Jon Meacham, and I like biographies, history, and historical fiction. For beach reads, I do spy-type books like those of Clive Cussler. My freshman year roommate at Washington and Lee is a horror novel writer, Douglas Clegg. I read some of his, but they give me nightmares. I am in the middle of a Cussler book, also.