Secretary of the Treasury Robert E. Rubin '60 has long found his professional life tugged by two countervailing forces--his devotion to public service and his commitment to personal gain.

"That's one of the mysteries of Bob," says Clay Chandler '85, a correspondent who covers Rubin for The Washington Post and describes him as a "very private man" who "doesn't like to show his hand."

Still, in a career spanning nearly four decades, this year's Harvard Business School (HBS) Class Day speaker has learned to maneuver successfully in two very different, but equally demanding environments: the high stakes world of Wall Street risk arbitrage and the contentious realm of Washington politics.

Indeed, it is Rubin's experience with the dual fields of private finance and public policy which, observers claim, make him an effective "steward of the nation's economy" as well as an attractive speaker for the third annual HBS Class Day ceremonies.

According to John E. "Bo" Kemp, a second-year student at HBS and the head of the 10-member Class Day committee charged with selecting this year's speaker, "The relevance of somebody like Secretary Rubin coming to speak here is that he is someone who worked his way up to become co-chair of Goldman, Sachs and then he broke away to do something completely different."

The committee hopes Rubin's words encourage students to consider alternatives to investment banking and consulting as potential careers, Kemp adds.

A Pragmatic Progressive

At 59, trim and with a full head of steel gray hair, Rubin looks young to be the chief architect of the country's fiscal policy.

But after three years at the helm of the Treasury Department, Rubin now casts a shadow over global financial markets comparable to that of his seemingly-omnipotent colleague at the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan.

"The Treasury and the Secretary of the Treasury are more in control of economic policy than the State Department and the Secretary of State are in control of foreign policy," says long-time Rubin associate and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Legislative Affairs Michael Levy.

Currency markets seem to move in step with Rubin's pronouncements of the Treasury's attitude toward the strength of the dollar.

Following the plunge in American equity markets late last October, Rubin's announcement that the "underlying economy was still sound" is cited as a major reason the country averted a financial collapse.

Most recently Rubin and the Treasury Department have spearheaded the International Monetary Fund's bailout of South Korea and the nations of Southeast Asia.

Owen Ullmann, senior news editor at Businessweek's Washington bureau, describes Rubin as a "moderate on economic policy and a liberal on social policy," noting on the one hand his advocacy of "pragmatic fiscal policies" friendly to Wall Street and on the other his support for programs to combat urban poverty.

Moreover, Ullman, Chandler and Levy all concur in their characterizations of Rubin as an "egalitarian manager" who aims to involve even the lowliest staffers in his policy decisions as part of a personalized modus operandi.