James D. Wolfensohn - A Global Life: My Journey Among Rich and Poor, from Sydney to Wall Street to the World Bank

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Table of Contents

For Elaine, Sara, Naomi, and Adam
With Love and Gratitude

PROLOGUE

THE IDEA OF WRITING an account of my life originally grew out of a desire to leave to my children a record of the events that shaped me, something that I wish my own parents had done. Hyman and Dora Wolfensohn settled in Australia in the late 1920s, leaving their home in London, where my father was born and where my mother was brought shortly after her birth in Belgium. I have long been frustrated by my lack of knowledge of their families and their early lives and resolved to leave a record of my own experiences, beginning in Sydney and moving to study abroad and eventually settling in the United States.

I have been blessed by opportunities to build a career in business and in public service and by living during a time of fascinating transformation on our planet. I profited from the enormous changes of the last fifty years in economics, technology, and global development. I benefited from the arrival of the jet aircraft, advances in all forms of communication, and the revolution in information made possible by the computer and Internet. The second half of the twentieth century must have been one of the most exciting and challenging periods ever in human development. As a young and proud Australian, I was able to build a life that has been global, to travel to more than one hundred countries, and to both witness and participate in the changing economics and demographic balance of our planet. I had opportunities that my father never had, and I doubt that my journey would have been possible even a decade or two earlier.

During the more than half century of my professional career, the whole world of international finance changed. The global markets developed with centers operating twenty-four hours a day in New York, London, the Middle East, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, and other locations. It was as though the world became smaller, but for me and others like me from many countries, it presented the chance to become a global player, to feel more a citizen of the world than a member of one nation.

And I learned that there were really two worldsthe developed world of one billion people, which in the year 2000 had 80 percent of the global income, and the developing world of more than five billion people, with 20 percent of the benefits. This stark contrast and the resulting poverty became, early in my life, a challenge and a passion. Equity and social justice became part of my vocabulary and a growing focus of my activities and interests. In 1980, I was considered, briefly, for the position of president of the World Bank, and I became an American citizen to give myself the opportunity to be nominated. But the time was not right. In 1995, I was nominated by President Clinton and served in the job for a decade. The World Bank presidency was, for me, and for my wife, Elaine, the opportunity of a lifetime. It somehow put the rest of my career into perspective.

I have been fortunate. I have talented, creative, supportive, and loyal friends, who can be found around the world. My interests beyond my career have been fulfilling and rich, in music, education, sports, and public service. It has been a great life.

More than anything else, I have been blessed by the support of Elaine, an enormously gifted and balanced person, who has been a wonderful companion of more than fifty years, and by my three children, Sara, Naomi, and Adam, whose families enrich me every day.

My hope is that this book may be of interest as an account of a period of more than half a century of extraordinarily fast and profound change in the global economy. I also hope that it may encourage some younger readers to embrace life at many levelsprofessional, social, and international. It is a moment unique in history, when anyone might build a global life in the service of humankind and create that life to ones personal satisfaction and joy as a citizen of an ever-shrinking planet.

A LONG WAY FROM NEW YORK

AS THE WHITE PAINT DRIPPED OFF MY HAIR AND ONTO MY BEST SUIT of clothes, I remember thinking, I deserved that. A farmhand had just picked me up by the ankles and put my head into a bucket of diluted lime wash. Hed had enough of my anxiety about getting my shoes dirty. There I was, a plump, precocious eight-year-old, out for a day in the country with my father. We were perfectly dressed, perfectly English, and perfectly out of place on a farm in the outer suburbs of Sydney. That dunking broke the ice for me. The farmhand told me I was a little prick, and when I got over the indignity, I knew he was right.

I was a miniature version of my father, Hyman, known as Bill Wolfensohn, who had never adjusted to Australian life. With his English upbringing, it had not occurred to him that one could visit a farm without a jacket and tie. As young as I was, the farmhands lesson made me realize I somehow needed to be more of an Australian. But when I looked at my father I wanted to be like him, too. He spoke beautifully and was polite and polished. Although others found him formal, I knew another side of him. His eyes twinkling, he would tell me wonderful stories and keep me engaged for hours. That was when he was at peace with himselfand I craved those moments. Mostly, however, he seemed preoccupied and worried.

Every afternoon, toward 5:00 PM, I would sit at the front of our apartment block waiting for my father to return from work. A tram would appear at the bottom of the little hill, and a few minutes later his familiar figure, in a dark suit and Homburg, would come into view. Although I would jump off the wall and run to meet him, my enthusiasm was always touched with caution. His moods were a mystery. If I sensed lightness, I would take his hand and we would go inside. Some other days, though, his worry was palpable. Then I would climb back onto the low wall above the mailboxes and in the shade of a frangipani tree and wait for my mother, Dora, who would walk the same path toward home a short time later. Her face always broke into a smile when she saw me.

We had lived in that redbrick block of apartments since I was three. Although it stood in Edgecliff, one of Sydneys affluent eastern suburbs, it was modest. There were two very small bedrooms, a living room with a sofa and two armchairs in which my parents sat every night, and a miniscule dining room that had previously served as a bedroom for my sister, Betty, ten years my senior. It was a close environment where I was the focus of my parents attention, particularly after my sister married when I was ten years old. Our family was not like other families I had observed. We had no relatives or grandparents or real connection with Australia. All we had was my mothers elderly uncle, Harry Feinmesser, who was at our table most Friday nights. Our grandparents and cousins were in England or America, and although they wrote on birthdays and we responded with grateful postcards, we grew up without any real feeling for them. My parents had friends, and there was the Jewish community, but when we switched off the lights at night, once Betty had left, it was just the three of usand music.

I would lie in bed with strains of my mothers music floating down the hall into my room. Often, I would drift into sleep hearing German or Spanish songs in the air, knowing she was at the piano. My mother was from another age. She had come out of Europe with all the accomplishments that a fine life in Belgium could provide. Fluent in several languages and gifted with literary sensibility, she also had a deep knowledge of music and could sketch and paint. Although we were thousands of miles from the old centers of Western culture, its influences stretched into our home.

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