Naperville native brought calm as World Bank president
World Bank President Robert Zoellick, a Naperville native who was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2007, said Wednesday he will leave the institution when his five-year term ends June 30.
“Together we have focused on supporting developing countries to navigate crises and adjust to global economic shifts,” Zoellick, 58, said. “The bank is now strong, healthy and well positioned for new challenges, and so it is a natural time for me to move on and support new leadership.”
Under Zoellick's presidency, shareholders approved the first capital increase in more than 20 years to meet demand from countries hit by the global slump that followed the 2008 financial crisis. His successor may face another surge in loan requests as the European debt crisis threatens to trigger more global turmoil.
The announcement opens the competition for a job that has always been held by a U.S. national under an informal agreement that also has a European head the International Monetary Fund. Christine Lagarde, then France's finance minister, was picked over Mexican central bank Gov. Agustin Carstens for the IMF job with U.S. support last year.
President Barack Obama may nominate Lawrence Summers, his former National Economic Council adviser, to replace Zoellick, two people familiar with the matter said last month. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also being considered, one of the people said.
Zoellick, a former U.S. trade representative, took over an institution bruised by the scandal that engulfed his predecessor Paul Wolfowitz, who resigned over his involvement in giving his companion an unusually large pay raise and promotion.
Zoellick “brought calm and a return of a sense of mission when he went to the bank,” said Nancy Birdsall, president of the Washington-based Center for Global Development, an aid research group, in a phone interview.
A veteran of three Republican administrations, Zoellick appointed Chinese academic Justin Lin as chief economist and picked several women for top management positions, including Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria, who has since returned home to become finance minister.
He alerted the world to a forthcoming food crisis, secured $49 billion in 2010 to replenish the unit that funds projects for the poorest countries and made more information on the lender's projects public.
Before Zoellick was head of the World Bank, he was an international trade ambassador who traveled the world while serving under President George W. Bush.
And despite a hectic pace meeting with leaders in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, he never forgot Naperville and returned there in September 2003. Despite the pressures of dealing with global trade negotiations, Zoellick made time in 2003 to talk with students from Naperville Central High School, where he graduated in 1971.
Zoellick also made time that week to receive the key to the city of Naperville and meet Naperville area business leaders as well as farmers in Aurora. He even toured Caterpillar Inc.' s facility in Aurora.
By October 2003, Zoellick went to China to continue those trade talks. China entered the WTO in 2001 and had since sold more products in American markets.
“How do we help the U.S. manufacturers to compete? It's to open markets in China,” Zoellick said at the time.
Ÿ Daily Herald Business Writer Anna Marie Kukec contributed to this report.