Everything about James Wolfensohn totally explained
James David Wolfensohn AO KBE (born
December 1,
1933) was the ninth president of the
World Bank Group.
Early life
Wolfensohn was born in
Sydney,
Australia on December 1, 1933, to Jewish parents who had immigrated from England during the
Great Depression.
He was educated at
Sydney Boys High School, studied
arts and
law at the
University of Sydney, and in 1959 earned a
master of business administration degree at
Harvard Business School. He was a member of the Australian fencing team at the
1956 Summer Olympics in
Melbourne and an officer in the
Royal Australian Air Force.
Business career
Before attending Harvard, Wolfensohn was a lawyer in the Australian law firm of Allen, Allen & Hemsley in Sydney (now Allens Arthur Robinson).
Upon graduating from Harvard Business School, Wolfensohn worked briefly for Swiss cement giant Holderbank (now
Holcim). He then returned to his native Australia, where he worked for various banking institutions before being employed by
J. Henry Schroders, a
London-based
investment bank. He was a senior executive in the London office before becoming managing director of the bank's
New York City office from 1970 to 1976. He later became a senior executive at
Salomon Brothers.
In
1980, he became a
naturalized citizen of the
United States, after it was rumored that he was a candidate to succeed
Robert McNamara as president of the
World Bank. After he was unsuccessful in this pursuit, he established his own investment firm, James D. Wolfensohn, Inc., along with partners including
Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the
Federal Reserve Bank. Upon accepting his nomination to serve as president of the World Bank in
1995, Wolfensohn divested of his ownership interest in James D. Wolfensohn, Inc. The firm was later bought by
Bankers Trust.
In 2005, upon stepping down as president of the World Bank, he founded
Wolfensohn & Company, LLC
, a privately held firm that invests, and provides strategic consulting advice to governments and large corporations doing business, in emerging market economies.
Since 2006, Wolfensohn has also been the chairman of the International Advisory Board of
Citigroup.
World Bank tenure and other public service
Wolfensohn became president of the World Bank on
July 1,
1995 after he was nominated by
U.S. President Bill Clinton. He was unanimously supported by the bank's board of executive directors to a second five-year term in 2000, becoming the third person to serve two terms in the position after
Eugene R. Black and
Robert McNamara. He visited more than 120 countries around the world during his term as president. He is credited, among other things, with being the first World Bank president to bring attention to the problem of corruption in the area of development financing.
On
January 3,
2005, he announced that he wouldn't seek a third term as president. During his term, the
Alfalfa Club named him as their nominee for
President of the United States in 2000 as part of a long-standing tradition, despite being constitutionally ineligible due to the natural-born citizen clause in
Article II of the United States Constitution.
Upon leaving the World Bank on May 31, 2005, Wolfensohn assumed the post of special envoy for Gaza disengagement for the
Quartet on the Middle East.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appointed him to this position, in which he was to help coordinate
Israel's planned withdrawal from the
Gaza Strip and to spearhead reconstruction efforts as the Palestinians assume sovereignty over the area. Citing frustration with the stymied
Road Map process, he announced that he wouldn't continue on past his original one-year commitment, and left the post on
April 30,
2006.
Civic and charitable activities
In 2005, Wolfensohn founded the Wolfensohn Center for Development
(External Link) at the
Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
The center examines how to implement, scale up, and sustain development interventions to solve key development challenges at a national, regional, and global level and strives to bridge the gap between development theorists and practitioners. Current projects focus on youth exclusion in the Middle East, large-scale anti-poverty programs, reforms of global economic governance, and regional cooperation, particularly in Central Asia.
Wolfensohn is a member of the board of directors of
Endeavor, a nonprofit organization that supports high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets, an honorary trustee of the
Brookings Institution, and served as a trustee of the
Rockefeller Foundation. He is a trustee and the former chairman of the board of trustees of the
Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is also chairman emeritus of
Carnegie Hall in New York and of the
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations. He serves on the board of various charitable foundations, including the Wolfensohn Family Foundation.
Wolfensohn has attended meetings of the
Bilderberg Group, the
Aspen Institute, and the
World Economic Forum.
In 2004, Wolfensohn was the commencement speaker at
Brandeis University (External Link).
Personal life and honors
A friend of
Jacqueline du Pré, he began cello studies with her at the age of 41. He continues to play and has appeared, together with musician friends, at private events at Carnegie Hall and elsewhere.
Wolfensohn has received numerous awards throughout his life, including becoming an honorary officer of the
Order of Australia in 1987, and an
honorary knighthood of the
Order of the British Empire in 1995 for his service to the arts. The
University of New South Wales conferred an honorary degree of
Doctor of Science in 2006 and he's a recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence.
He is married to Elaine, nee Botwinick, and has three grown children, Sara, Naomi, Adam, and two grandsons, Benjamin and Micah.
Further Information
Get more info on 'James Wolfensohn'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://james_wolfensohn.totallyexplained.com">James Wolfensohn Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
