Alumni Focus

The Kingdom of Bhutan is adopting its first constitution. Will it raise the GNH (gross national happiness)?

If the world of consumer rights law is a battle against modern-day Goliaths—banks, HMOs, mortgage brokers, credit card companies and others with powerful resources—then F. Paul Bland Jr. ’86 is more than ready to play David.

In the past, state-owned Chinese banks were known for bad loans and poor corporate governance. Recently, four of these institutions went public, with one IPO raising a record $21.9 billion.

Peter C. Krause is managing director of Greenhill & Co., a merchant bank with offices in New York City, Dallas, Toronto, London and Frankfurt.

They came from as far away as Sudan, Brazil, Australia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Taiwan, Russia, Japan and Argentina, and from as near as neighboring Virginia.

Perched on the 21st floor of an office building next to the Statehouse on Boston’s Beacon Hill, Juliette Kayyem ’95 has a spectacular view of the city’s waterfront. But when you’re the person in charge of Massachusetts’ homeland security, that view prompts vigilance more than anything else.

Harvard Law School graduate Robert Zoellick ’81 has been appointed president of the World Bank by President Bush. A career diplomat, Zoellick emerged as the first choice of economic ministers around the world to fill the post left vacant by Paul Wolfowitz and will face the difficult task of bringing credibility to the institution. His nomination must be confirmed by the World Bank board of member countries.

Tony Bloom LL.M. ’64 is the former chairman and CEO of The Premier Group, which grew from a small business founded by his family at the turn of the last century into one of South Africa’s largest industrial companies.

More than a thousand domestic violence victims who were wrongly denied welfare benefits can thank Elizabeth S. Saylor ’01 for fixing the system.

As a teenager, Ted Vosk had become homeless after a “messy home situation led to a mutual agreement” between Vosk and his parents: He left, and they kicked him out. After some time on the streets, a friend who was in college invited him to sit in on an astronomy class.

Bill Clendaniel ’75 likes what he does for the living. And the dead.

Randy Komisar’s trajectory from corporate counsel to executive to “virtual CEO” to author to venture capitalist was not at all planned. “My career makes sense only in a rearview mirror,” says Komisar ’81.

Yash Pal Ghai LL.M. ’63 has spent his professional life quietly advising countries ravaged by war and colonialism on how to use the law to build democratic societies. Recently, though, his work has received extensive coverage, particularly in Asia, for his sharp criticisms of Cambodia’s current human rights record—and the even sharper response of that country’s prime minister, Hun Sen.

When Paul Tobias ’58 was not yet 30, he wrote to Herbert Hoover, Carl Jung and several hundred others, seeking advice on turning 70.

As a young girl growing up in the 1930s on a small island in the Philippines, Erlinda Arce Ignacio Espiritu LL.M. ’51 found inspiration to become a lawyer in the legends of the Knights of the Round Table.

When Jim Clark, chairman of online photo sharing giant Shutterfly, resigned from his company’s board of directors in January, he became the first CEO to blame the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for his departure, saying the law had taken reform too far and had crimped his ability to lead.

Kenneth Chenault, the CEO of American Express and a 1976 Harvard Law graduate, returned to Cambridge this weekend to speak at the school's fall reunion exercises. Well-known for his record of reorganizing American Express in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Chenault spoke about the value of legal education in preparing people for the uncertainties of life.

Hill Harper ’92 heard the same questions again and again. A graduate of Harvard Law School and the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and an actor currently starring on the hit TV show “CSI: NY,” Harper frequently visited schools to talk to black youths, many of whom told him how difficult and often hopeless it seemed to stay in school or pursue a career.

Susan Lytle Lipton LL.M. '71 practiced securities law and was the first woman to become a partner at Greenberg, Traurig, Hoffman, Lipoff & Quentel in Florida.

As the managing partner of Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York City, John R. Ettinger ’78 spends a lot of time thinking about the future—specifically, how to position his firm most advantageously for the long term.