Zoellick Appoints New General Counsel and Senior Vice President

Press Release No:2009/193/EXC

Contacts:

In Washington:

Carl Hanlon

(202) 473-8087

chanlon@worldbank.org

WASHINGTON, December 22, 2008 - World Bank Group President, Robert B. Zoellick, today announced the appointment of a French lawyer and former judge as the group’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel.



Anne-Marie Leroy, who has been a partner in charge of the Department of Public Law at the Paris office of Denton Wilde Sapte LLP since 2005, will take up the post in March next year.

“The position of General Counsel is a critical one for our institution, “Zoellick said.

“Anne-Marie Leroy brings a powerful set of skills to this important task from a rich background in government, the private sector, development, and international institutions. “

Zoellick said the General Counsel not only oversees the Bank’s Legal Vice-Presidency, but also needs to provide “the intellectual leadership and creativity in devising innovative solutions to enable the World Bank to meet its many developmental objectives and challenges in a rapidly changing environment within the framework of the Bank Group’s Articles and policies.”

A graduate of both the Paris Institute for Political Sciences in law and economics, and the National School for Public Administration (ENA), with a graduate degree in the Sociology of Organizations, Anne-Marie Leroy joined the Council of State (Conseil d'Etat) in 1986, the highest court in France for public and administrative law, where she worked as a judge for five years.

In 1991, she was appointed to the Ministry of National Education, as a director of legal and international affairs. Her work included technical assistance projects in developing countries, as well as in multilateral institutions, especially the EU and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). From January 1995 to May 1998, she served in the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa region as a senior public sector specialist, working on public management issues in Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia.

Returning to Paris in 1998 to take up the position of Department Head in charge of Governance and Civil Society issues in the Public Management Service of the OECD, she was appointed as Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, in charge of government reform.

After the presidential election of 2002, she returned to the Council of State and her role as a judge, at the same time actively taking part in the drafting of a Conseil d’Etat report published in early 2003, proposing a major reform of the French civil service that is to be implemented by the current government. In 2003, she was also appointed by the Board of Executive Directors of the Inter-American Development Bank as a judge with the IDB's Administrative Tribunal.

source : http://web.worldbank.org/