The Johns Hopkins Gazette: March 18, 2002
March 18, 2002
VOL. 31, NO. 26

  

Next Dean of SAIS Is Announced

Dennis O'Shea
Homewood
Johns Hopkins Gazette Online Edition

Jessica Einhorn says her job as the dean of SAIS will be to make things possible.

"I view the dean as an enabler," said Einhorn (pictured at right), the former World Bank managing director appointed to head the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies starting June 1. "The role of the dean is to help the faculty fulfill its potential in both research and teaching and to enable the students to receive the education that best prepares them for the careers of their choice."

Einhorn's appointment was approved by the university's board of trustees last week and announced by President William R. Brody on March 17.

"This is a terrific opportunity," she said, "to lead a great organization in the field of international affairs, to interact with a renowned faculty and to do all this for the purpose of helping to prepare the next generation of leaders in international public and private affairs."

Einhorn, who earned a master's degree in international affairs from SAIS in 1970, will be the first graduate of the 59-year-old school to return as dean. She succeeds Paul Wolfowitz, who resigned in February 2001 to become deputy secretary of defense in the Bush administration. Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Stephen Szabo has been interim dean.

Einhorn worked for 19 years at the World Bank, which lends money to developing countries and provides assistance designed to raise living standards, assist the world's poorest populations and eliminate the worst effects of poverty. Einhorn rose through a number of positions at the bank to become vice president and treasurer in 1992. In 1996, she was promoted to managing director, serving directly under World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn. In that position, she was credited with creating a strong team and governance structure, and with helping to modernize the bank's financial policies, loan products and systems.

She is known internationally for her influence on the development of modern global capital markets, including key roles in the first currency swap operation, in the development of the global bond and in risk management of derivatives.

She spent her last year at the bank, from 1998 to 1999, as a visiting fellow at the International Monetary Fund, studying issues involving the international financial system, including the nature of financial crises.

She said that this time of "great international challenge to the United States" is also an important time for SAIS and other schools of international relations.

"We have known since the Berlin Wall came down that we had ended an era, and a new new epoch in international relations began with the tragic events of Sept. 11," Einhorn said. "Facing these new challenges makes this a particularly exciting time for professors to teach students and to interact with them in order to best prepare them for leadership in diplomatic and other areas of public or nonprofit service as well as business, journalism and, of course, academia."

Since she left the World Bank, Einhorn has worked in the Washington office of Clark & Weinstock, a consulting firm. Earlier in her career, she worked at the U.S. Treasury and State departments and in the International Development Cooperation Agency of the United States.

"Jessica has both a strong academic perspective on public policy and a profound practical grasp of international finance, a combination particularly relevant to SAIS's mission and its unique strengths," President Brody said. "She brings a broad range of skills, experience and contacts, both domestic and international, that will serve her well as she seeks to build on the success that SAIS enjoyed under Paul Wolfowitz."

In addition to her SAIS degree, she earned a bachelor's degree from Barnard College in 1967 and a doctorate in politics from Princeton University in 1974. Her dissertation was published as a book, Expropriation Politics.

Einhorn is a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and a director of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Institute for International Economics and the Center for Global Development. She is a former trustee of the German Marshall Fund. She is a director of Pitney Bowes Inc. and Bankers Trust and chairs the International Advisory Board of J.E. Robert Cos.


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