Background: James Wolfensohn has had a long, visible and highly distinguished career in business, finance and public service. The central focus of his career has been investment banking and the economic development of emerging market economies. In addition to being chairman of the General Partner and WFM, Mr. Wolfensohn is chairman of Wolfensohn & Company, LLC, and an advisor to corporations and goverments, chairman of the International Advisory Board of Citigroup, Inc., and chairman of the advisory group of the Wolfensohn Center for Development, a new research initiative focused on global poverty, at the Brookings Institution.
From 1995 to 2005, Wolfensohn was President of the World Bank. Mr. Wolfensohn was the third president in Bank history to be reappointed for a second five-year term by the Board of Executive Directors. In his 10 years as President, Mr. Wolfensohn traveled to more than 120 countries to better understand the challenges facing the Bank’s 184 member countries. In addition to visiting development projects, he met with the Bank's government clients and representatives from business, labor, media, non-governmental organizations, religious and women's groups, students, and teachers.
Before joining the Bank, Mr. Wolfensohn was President and Chief Executive Officer of James D. Wolfensohn Inc, an investment firm that advised major international and U.S. corporations. He relinquished his interests in the firm upon joining the Bank.
Mr. Wolfensohn served as Executive Partner of Salomon Brothers in New York and head of its investment-banking department, Executive Deputy Chairman and Managing Director of Schroeder’s Ltd in London, President of J. Henry Schroeder’s Banking Corporation in New York, and Managing Director, Darling & Co of Australia.
Prior to attending Harvard, Mr. Wolfensohn was a lawyer in the Australian law firm of Allen Allen & Hemsley. He served as an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force, and was a member of the 1956 Australian Olympic Fencing Team.
Mr. Wolfensohn has participated in a wide range of cultural and volunteer activities throughout his life, especially the performing arts. In 1970, he became involved in New York's Carnegie Hall, first as a board member and later, from 1980 to 1991, as Chairman of the Board. During this time, he led its successful effort to restore the landmark New York building. He is now Chairman Emeritus of Carnegie Hall. In 1990, Mr. Wolfensohn also became Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. On January 1, 1996, he was elected Chairman Emeritus.
Mr. Wolfensohn has been President of the International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies and Director of the Business Council for Sustainable Development. He also served both as Chairman of the Finance Committee and Director of the Rockefeller Foundation and of the Population Council, and as a member of the Board of Rockefeller University.
In addition, he is Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Mr. Wolfensohn is also an Honorary Trustee of the Brookings Institution and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Century Association in New York.
Mr. Wolfensohn is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Philosophical Society. He has been the recipient of many awards for his volunteer work, including the first David Rockefeller Prize of the Museum of Modern Art in New York for his work for culture and the arts.
In May 1995, he was awarded an Honorary Knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to the arts. The governments of Australia, France, Germany, Morocco, Norway, and Russia have also decorated him.
