Tony Zanders
Tony Zanders is an award-winning software entrepreneur and library technology executive. He currently serves as the founder and CEO of Skilltype — a software platform for information professionals and their teams to analyze, develop, and share expertise. He also serves as the inaugural entrepreneur in residence at the Boston University Libraries.
In this role, Zanders provides executive counsel to the University Librarian during the academic strategic planning process while designing and implementing new approaches to recruitment, retention, and training that produce elite performance for the University and its Libraries. Zanders is the first EIR in the Libraries’ history. Zanders has a proven track record of helping research libraries develop innovative solutions to leverage technology within the research workflow.
Zanders bought libraries from Camelback Ventures, where he served as Entrepreneur In Residence, working with black and brown founders on company strategy. Before Camelback, Zanders was Vice President of Global Customer Development at EBSCO, where he advised libraries on software integrations across more than 30 countries. While at EBSCO, Zanders played an instrumental role in the company’s participation in the FOLIO community consulting over a dozen of the community’s early partners on service models. Zanders also has served as Director of Customer Development at Ex Libris, a ProQuest company.
While there, he was the liaison to the Ex Libris Users of North America (ELUNA) and was responsible for community engagement with the Ex Libris Alma development partners and early adopter community. Tony is a frequent speaker and writer in library and higher education communities including the American Library Association (IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), and the Special Library Association (SLA). Zanders is an honors graduate from Washington and Jefferson College, where he double majored in English and Philosophy, and was awarded the institution’s Young Alumni Award in 2015. A proud native of New Orleans, Louisiana, he currently lives in Louisiana with his wife and children.