In the age of Obama, a new type of politician and public servant is emerging in the United States. They are the post-civil rights generation. They are the type of men and women who have moved beyond the kind of jobs and the kind of rhetoric that was associated with the Jesse Jackson era. Many of them are of West Indian origin, such as Professor Peter Blair Henry, a young Jamaican-born academic who has just taken up the prestigious position of Dean of New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Professor Henry was born in Jamaica, but his family migrated to the United States when he was only nine. His parents are academics: his father is a research chemist and his mother is a geneticist. At college in North Carolina, Henry combined excellence in sports (football, basketball and baseball) with being an academic high flyer. He said at the time, “If you believe the individual is a combination of body and mind, it doesn’t make sense to develop one and not the other.”

Henry was popular at college. One of his sports coaches said at the time, “Here’s a guy who’s too good to be true, the genuine article. I don’t know if anyone is better liked in the school.” Henry’s basketball coach thought he was good enough to be a professional. But in 1990 Henry went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He did not hesitate in taking the academic path. “I always wanted to be a Rhodes Scholar,” he told local papers in North Carolina. His mother added, “Since he’s been little, he’s been intense. Whatever he does, he does with a passion.”

His plan at the time was to become an economics professor and return to Jamaica to advise the Government on economic policy. But his career path took him to Stanford Graduate School of Business in California. There he spent 12 years climbing the career ladder, culminating in his becoming a professor of international economics and associate director of the Centre for Global Business and the Economy. He married Lisa J Nelson, a Yale-educated child psychiatrist, with whom he has four sons. Last year President Barack Obama chose Professor Henry to work on his transition team. And now he gets to head a top business school.

In a recent interview with London’s Financial Times Professor Henry said, “My research in the past dozen years has been about policies for emerging economies. And emerging economies are now in fact becoming more and more the world economy.” He added, “Business is one of the most powerful institutions on |Earth for creating wealth and opportunity and helping to lift people out of poverty. When you think about it that way, then business is not separate from development policy. We are at an incredible, interesting time in global business. Capitalism has come under question and countries are questioning the best way to move forward. Business schools should be at the forefront of this”

Young, gifted and black, Professor Peter Blair Henry is a Jamaican-born academic powerhouse to watch.