Rohan Weerasinghe is the chosen one-- chosen to head a major New York law firm, that is. Weerasinghe is now the Senior Partner at Shearman & Sterling. An American of Sri Lankan descent, he becomes the first brown person EVER to ascend such great heights.
From the firm's press release:
Weerasinghe, 54, was previously head of the Capital Markets Group, and is a member of the firms Policy Committee. He joined Shearman & Sterling in 1977 and was elected to the partnership in 1985. Born in Sri Lanka, Weerasinghe was educated in the United States and holds a JD from Harvard Law School and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar. Weerasinghe earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College summa cum laude.
Do you think the Harvard Annual-giving people call him three times as much? I'm just asking...
Still wondering why this is a big deal? According to Columbia J-school Prof Sree Sreenivasan,
This is a major achievement for a desi lawyer (and on par with Rajat Gupta's becoming head of consulting company McKinsey & Co. in 1994).
In fact, this may be a larger opportunity for glee that we thought:
Weerasinghe...is believed to be the first non-white senior partner at a top New York firm.
See? It's huge!
:+:
Oh, like you could resist using that title. Pffft.
