President of the World Bank
Born: Australia, 1933
Education: BA, LLB University of Sydney; MBA Harvard University

The tenure of the famously brash World Bank president is probably the most controversial in the institution's history. While Wolfensohn says he has invigorated the bank's bureaucracy and improved loan quality. He has reorganised and shaken the institution, making him unopoular with many of his own staff and many outside think his rhetoric about the world's poor is simply not matched by the Bank's performance.

Before becoming president of the World Bank in 1995, Wolfensohn had a distinguished career in finance. He was an executive partner with Salomon Brothers in New York and was deputy chairman and managing director of Schroders in London. In 1981, he started his own company, James D. Wolfensohn. He began a second five-year term as World Bank president in June 2000.

Wolfensohn served as an Officer in the Royal Australian Air Force, and was a member of the 1956 Australian Olympic Fencing Team before leaving Australia in 1977 to take up a position with Salomon Brothers in New York.