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Cynthia Banks is Founder, Executive Director, and President of GlobaLinks Learning Abroad and she has been helping students study abroad for over 22 years. Besides building and running one of the best study abroad programs in North America, she created the Foundation for Global Scholars, a non-profit organization supporting study abroad scholarships for students from underrepresented areas in education abroad. GlobaLinks Learning Abroad, along with other corporations and individuals donate funds annually.
A native of Colorado, Cynthia earned a Bachelor of Business degree from Colorado State University, a Graduate Certificate of Entrepreneurship from the University of Colorado and a Master of Organizational Development degree from the University of Colorado - Denver.
She has served as the Chair of the Education Abroad Knowledge Community for NAFSA: Association of International Educators and was invited to sit on the NAFSA Board of Directors starting in 2012. She serves on other non-profit boards and was selected for the prestigious International Women’s Forum in 2009.
Cynthia has traveled the globe for her work speaking at international conferences and visiting partner universities and programs. She has extensive experience in Australia as this is where the AustraLearn (now GlobaLinks Learning Abroad) programs began and she and her family lived in Queensland for a year in 2011. She adores New Zealand and especially Queenstown which reminds her of her home state of Colorado. She has explored Asia marking China as the greatest adventure in culture and places like Singapore, Thailand and Korea as significantly different destinations each with amazing opportunities to learn. She first explored the UK and Europe in 1971 and has since returned many times adding locations like the Czech Republic and Greece to her experience. What remains elusive? South Africa and much of Latin America.
She lives in Colorado with her husband (who is from Jamaica) and her two children ages 11 and 14. She still skis in the Colorado Rockies during the winter months and aims to do more hiking in Colorado in the summer. Reading is a hobby that unfortunately takes a back seat to busy parenting and work.
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