Sanford was born and raised in Winnetka, Illinois, an upscale suburb of Chicago, the daughter of Susan Reynolds and John William Sullivan.
[2] From 1984 until 1990, Sanford worked at Lazard Freres & Company, an investment bank based in New York City[2] She eventually became a vice president in the firm's mergers and acquisitions group.
[11] In March 2015, Sanford expressed interest in becoming Director of the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
In 2005, she launched the Healthy South Carolina Challenge, an initiative to reduce the incidence of chronic preventable disease.
She serves on the boards of several non-profits, including the Hollings Cancer Center, the Drayton Hall historical property in Charleston, the Coastal Community Foundation and the Children's Hospital Advisory Fund.
[citation needed] On June 24, 2009, after having been absent from South Carolina for several days, her husband admitted to an affair with a woman from Argentina identified in multiple press reports as María Belén Chapur.
[citation needed] On August 7, 2009, she moved out of the South Carolina Governor's Mansion with the couple's four sons and returned to the family home on Sullivan's Island.
[citation needed] She published a memoir, Staying True, which was released on February 5, 2010, which details her experience of her husband's affair and the effect it had on her own life.
[17] In a statement, Mark Sanford admitted that he had gone to the house to watch the second half of Super Bowl XLVII with his son.