James Wolfensohn

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Chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts James Wolfensohn, 1990.

Michael Geissinger/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-ppss-01011)

James Wolfensohnwas an Australian-born American banker who served as president of the World Bank (1995–2005), where he tried to shift the institution’s focus toward humanitarian efforts.

Wolfensohn served in the Royal Australian Air Force, and he was a member of the 1956 Australian Olympic fencing team, though he did not win a medal. He was educated at the University of Sydney (B.A., 1954; LL.B., 1957) and Harvard University (M.B.A., 1959).

During a distinguished career in investment banking, Wolfensohn oversaw the restructuring of the Chrysler Corp. while working at Salomon Brothers, and for 14 years he served as president and chief executive officer of James D. Wolfensohn, Inc., an investment company. A philanthropist as well as an accomplished cellist, Wolfensohn served as chairman (1980–91) of New York City’s Carnegie Hall, overseeing its remodeling, and as chairman (1990–95) of the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Wolfensohn became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1980.

(Read Lee Iacocca’s Britannica entry on Chrysler.)

On June 1, 1995, Wolfensohn became the ninth president of the World Bank, replacing Lewis Preston, who had retired because of ill health. Rather than measuring success by the volume of loans, Wolfensohn tried to shift the bank’s emphasis back to alleviating poverty, creating sustainable development, and attaining social justice. He also sought to end corruption and to bring more transparency to the organization. In addition, during his tenure, the World Bank greatly increased its funding of education, health, and HIV/AIDS programs. In 2000 he was appointed to a second five-year term, becoming the third president of the bank to serve more than one term. Wolfensohn did not seek a third term, and he was succeeded by Paul Wolfowitz in 2005.

Upon his departure from the World Bank, Wolfensohn was appointed by the “Quartet”—Russia, the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations—to serve as a special envoy to the Middle East, a position he held until 2006. That same year he founded the Wolfensohn Center for Development, a think tank, based at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., that focused on economic and social change. It ceased operating in 2011. About this time, Wolfensohn wrote the memoir A Global Life: My Journey Among Rich and Poor, from Sydney to Wall Street to the World Bank (2010).