Great Wealthy Men

I wish him luck, but, uh...

Mr. Zients, who will turn 47 on Tuesday, made a fortune reported to be close to $200 million building two consultancies and taking them public. His wife, Mary, is from a prominent South African mining family — Nelson Mandela attended their wedding — and they live with their four children in Northwest Washington, where an Aston Martin is in the garage. A onetime high school wrestler at the capital’s elite St. Albans School, he is often described as ultracompetitive.

Now he works without pay “on a full-time, trust me, around-the-clock basis,” he told reporters in a conference call on Friday. Mr. Zients shuttles between a health care command center in suburban Herndon, Va., the White House and an office near the coffee machines on the third floor of the hulking Department of Health and Human Services building here, overseeing an effort that includes dozens of tech experts. They include Todd Park, the White House chief technology officer, who is under subpoena by House Republicans to testify at a hearing this week, and Michael Dickerson, an engineer on leave from Google who lists “herding cats” as a skill on his LinkedIn profile.