New Zealand born, Deborah Sanders worked her way through the disciplines of backstage theatre in NZ and Australia before arriving in London where she worked for a leading European rock ‘n roll promoter managing American artists’ tours of the UK and Europe.  She went on to become Manager at the Dukes of York’s Theatre in St Martin’s Lane, a position she held for almost 5 years under the leadership of Richard Attenborough.  Later, she and a partner formed Trillion Pictures, a video production company that produced weekly rock concerts for live broadcast by the Sky channel, later edited for home video distribution.

Moving to the US, she was appointed founding Company Manager at Santa Fe Stages, an international theatre production company producing a variety of entertainment for Santa Fe’s summer festival and it was here she met Lotfi Mansouri, then General Director at San Francisco Opera, who recruited her to join him at San Francisco Opera as General Director’s Liaison.  Deborah served for three years as artistic and promotional consultant to the Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago in Italy and returned to London in 2004. She was recruited by IMG Artists in London and spent five years building and maintaining the careers of her own list of singers and conductors before joining forces with Rayfield Allied in September 2012. She became Director of Opera in 2013 and continues to manage an international list of singers, conductors and directors from a variety of countries who work all over the world.