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James Wolfensohn, Chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Photo by Michael Geissinger-

Top 10 Remarkable Facts about James Wolfensohn

 Sir James David Wolfensohn was an Australian-American investment banker and economist who served as the ninth president of the World Bank Group. Wolfensohn worked for various companies in British and the United States before starting his own investment.

Wolfensohn served two terms as president of the World Bank and later held various positions with charitable organizations and policy think-tanks, including the Brookings Institution.

Learn more about James Wolfensohn in these 10 remarkable facts.

1. James Wolfensohn Was Born in 1933

Wolfensohn was born on December 1, 1933, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, to Hyman and Dora. His father, Hyman, was a brilliant but failed businessman who had previously worked for the Rothschild banking family.

Wolfensohn was named after James Armand de Rothschild, his father’s former employer, whose birthday he shared. Wolfensohn grew up in a two-bedroom flat in Edgecliff.

While growing up, his father struggled financially and Wolfensohn, in his autobiography A Global Life. He described how monetary insecurity was a fact of life from childhood and explained that he was always looking for a cushion to protect himself from it.

2. Wolfensohn Was a University Graduate

He attended Woollahra Public School and then joined Sydney Bos High School. Wolfensohn entered the University of Sydney at the age of 16, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws.

In 1959, he received a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School. During his 2010 memoirs, Wolfensohn revealed that he had failed several university classes, including English and was a late developer. 

3. He Worked for Mideast Envoy

Secretary Rice and Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement James Wolfensohn speak to the press after their meeting. Photo by State Department photo by Michael Gross-

In April 2005, the Quartet on the Middle East assigned Wolfensohn a special envoy for Gaza disengagement. Quartet on the Middle East is a group of major powers and the United Nations promoting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

After eleven months, he resigned as special envoy when he understood the United States government to be undermining his efforts and firing his staff.

According to him, the major blame for his Middle East mission lay with him. 鈥淚 feel that if anything, I was stupid for not reading the small print,鈥� he admitted. 鈥淚 was never given the mandate to negotiate the peace.鈥� Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair would succeed him in this role.

4. Wolfensohn Was Awarded Several Honours Throughout His Life

In 1987, he became an honorary officer of the Order of Australia. In 1993 he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement and an honorary knighthood of the Order of the British Empire in 1995 for his work in the arts.

The University of New South Wales presented an honorary degree of Doctor of Science on him in 2006 and received the Award of Excellence from The International Center in New York.

Wolfensohn got the Leo Baeck Medal for his humanitarian work promoting tolerance and social justice in 2006. In 2011 he was accorded the Golden Biatec Award, the highest award bestowed by Slovakia鈥檚 Informal Economic Forum.

During the 2016 Summer Olympics, Wolfensohn was inducted into Olympians for Life Projects.

5. Wolfensohn Served as the Ninth President of the World Bank Group

SAINT PETERSBURG. With President of the World Bank James Wolfensohn at the opening of the Mariinsky Theatre’s 218th season. Photo by Presidential Press and Information Office-

On July 1, 1995, he was nominated by U.S President Bill Clinton to be the ninth president of the World Bank.

Wolfensohn was unanimously supported by the bank鈥檚 board of executive directors for a second five-year term in 2000. He became the third person to serve two terms in the position after Eugene R. Black and Robert McNamara.

He is credited as the first World Bank president to bring attention to the problem of corruption in development financing. Wolfensohn’s reforms during his tenure earned him recognition as a champion of the world’s poor.

Some of the reforms at the World Bank included a move towards openness, decentralization and technology investments. During his tenure, World Bank became one of the largest funders of global primary education and health programs, including HIV/AIDS programs.

Wolfensohn also advanced debt release programs for many African and Latin American nations. He showed attention to contemporary Africa when he hosted the award-winning visual artist Ibiyinka Alao during the show Visions and Vignettes presented by the World Bank Art Program.

6. Wolfensohn Became a Naturalized Citizen of the United States

In 1980, Wolfensohn became a naturalized citizen of the United States. A naturalized citizen is a citizen who has undergone a legal act by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country.

When he became naturalized, it was rumored that he was a candidate to succeed Robert McNamara as president of the World Bank. He renounced his Australian citizenship at this time.

Wolfensohn regained the Australian citizenship that he had renounced earlier in October 2010. He was a resident of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

7. Wolfensohn Established His Investments

He started his investment firm, James D. Wolfensohn, Inc., with partners including Paul Volcker. When he was appointed president of World Bank in 1995, he divested his ownership interest in James D. Wolfensohn, Inc.

Bankers Trust later purchased the firm. The firm had a wide variety of clients, which included Ralph Lauren Corporation and Mercedes-Benz.

After he stepped down as president of the World Bank in 2005, Wolfensohn founded Wolfensohn & Company, LLC. It was a private firm that works with governments and large corporations’ business in emerging markets.

8. Wolfensohn was Involved in Several Civic Charitable Activities

World Bank President James Wolfensohn speaking at the opening of the Annual Meetings’ Program of Seminars; Prague Congress Centre. Photo by the International Monetary Fund-

Between 1985 and 2015, Wolfensohn took part in 27 conferences of the Bilderberg Group. The conferences rendered him one of the most frequent participants of the organization during this time period.

He founded the Wolfensohn Center for Development in 2006 at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The Center concluded work after five years.

Wolfensohn Center for Development projects focused on youth exclusion in the Middle East regional cooperation, large-scale anti-poverty programs and reforms of global economic governance, particularly in Central Asia.

He was also a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and an honorary trustee of the Brookings Institution. Wolfensohn was a member of the non-profit think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations. He served on the board of several charitable foundations.

9. Before Becoming President of World Bank, Wolfensohn Worked in Different Institution

Wolfensohn worked as a lawyer in the Australian law firm of Allen, Allen & Hesley in Sydney (now Allens). After graduating from Harvard Business School, he worked briefly for Swiss cement giant Holderbank.

After school, he returned to Australia and worked for various banking institutions. In the late 1960s, he served as a director of Darling鈥檚 major shareholder, J. Henry Schroder & CO, a London-based investment bank.

Wolfensohn was a senior executive in the London Office before becoming managing director of the bank鈥檚 New York City office from 1970 to 1976. He later became a senior executive at Salomon Brothers.

10. Wolfensohn was Married to Elaine Botwinick

In 1961, he married Elaine Botwinick, sister of IT entrepreneur Edward Botwinick. They had three children and seven grandchildren.

His wife died in August 2020; three months later, Wolfensohn died in Manhattan on November 25, 2020. Wolfensohn died from pneumonia complications at 86, just six days before his 87th birthday.