King Charles III honored alumna Elizabeth Noël Harwerth ’71 last year with the Order of the British Empire for her outstanding services to international trade.
The native Texan and daughter of a Laredo rancher is one of few people with dual U.S. and British citizenship to receive an O.B.E., an award for great impact in a person’s line of work. Harwerth has lived in the U.K for 27 years and been a dual citizen for 23. Her recent role as chair of U.K. Export Finance, a senior position in the British government, is also rare for a dual citizen. Harwerth stepped down from the position in April after a seven-year term.
Harwerth first enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin as an undergraduate, where she earned a bachelor’s in secondary education in 1969, before entering law school. After Texas Law, Harwerth worked in litigation, then took roles in the mining and banking industries before entering government service. She’s served on numerous boards, including the British Horseracing Authority and London Metals Exchange.
Harwerth recently discussed her British government service, how the law school has helped her career, and advice for current law students.
Can you tell us about your path from Texas Law to London?
When I graduated law school, I thought I wanted to be a litigator. I went to New York and worked in litigation for the federal government. Two years in, they changed the federal rules of evidence, and it became a discovery practice. I thought, “This just is not what I want to do at all.” I knew a little bit about taxes, so got myself a job with a large multinational ad company doing their tax work. That led to a chief technology officer role in the mining industry. Ultimately, I ended up at Citi doing corporate banking. I was chief operating officer of the firm’s European bank, and that job took me to London.
In London, when I say I’m from Texas, I typically get, “Oh, Texans are good people.” I think there is a certain reputation, certainly in Europe, that Texans have of being honest, hardworking, outgoing, and credible.
U.K. Export Finance—as the name suggests! —supports exporters. What has your role as chair entailed, and what accomplishments are you most proud of?
U.K. Export Finance does deals that are quite large. During my time, this has included a bunch of pop-up hospitals in Rwanda—they were modular hospitals that could be put up anywhere—and financing the building of the Cairo Metro in Egypt. We’ve done a lot of work in offshore wind, too—we’re the largest financier of offshore wind in Taiwan. In Ukraine, there’s been significant infrastructure damage because of the war. One of the British exporters exports bridges that can be put up quickly, and we’ve been financing quite a bit of those, as well. One of things I’m proudest of is, when COVID hit, we were financing airplanes, and some of the airlines had a hard time. Through aircraft deals, we placed aircraft all over world on very favorable lease terms. We made lemonade out of lemons.
That’s important work. You’re on several boards, too. What about board work excites you?
It’s the variety of work and the fact that it’s quite strategic. You’re really looking at things on a high level to make the best decisions for shareholders and other company stakeholders. It’s interesting and challenging work, though it can be quite unpredictable. Currently I’m on the corporate board of OneSavings Bank PLC, one of the largest mortgage banks in Britain, and Crown Agents Bank, which goes back 200 years to when British merchants converted their sterling to make payments in local currencies in faraway places. The bank basically does the same thing today for any large organization that needs to make payments in exotic currencies—but electronically. The U.N.’s World Food Program, the Defense Department, and the Foreign Office are some of the biggest clients. We did a lot of work with the Defense Department to pay their workers in Afghanistan, and are currently providing funds to the U.N. for relief work in the Sudan. I’m also actively interviewing for another board role in the private or public sector.
How did your Texas Law experience shape you and impact your career?
I was very happy to go to UT and I had some great professors. My time at the school impacted me both personally and intellectually. As a lawyer, when you approach a problem, you dissect it into its various parts and see it in a forensic way. When I’m looking at a business situation, problem-solving, or trying to digest facts, I still use that way of thinking I learned in law school.
In law school, I was also one of only a handful of women students at the time, so when I started working I was used to being one of the only women. It teaches you a certain amount of self-confidence. I certainly became quite resilient in law school and that has stayed with me. When I got to New York, and was working entirely with men, I didn’t feel uncomfortable.
What advice would you give to current law students?
Legal training is a great background for lots of things. I certainly had a legal career, but I turned my legal career into a business career. My advice is to keep your options open. I found that my legal background was a very good entrée into the banking business, to regulated industries, to mining, to things that are quite complex and intricate. My other advice, which I wish I had done sooner, is to work abroad. There’s so much opportunity, particularly in the legal profession, to work overseas.
Graduates have a great degree and opportunity, and you’re going to have great credibility around the world. You start with a bias in your favor when you say, “I’m a lawyer from Texas Law.”