As former New York City Public Advocate, Betsy Gotbaum held an ill-defined job with little formal power—she's the city's "ombudswoman."

The daughter of a vice chairman of ad agency J. Walter Thompson, Gotbaum grew up on the Upper East Side and followed her first husband, a CIA agent, to Brazil, where she taught French at an American school. When the two divorced, she headed back to New York and earned a master's in Latin American studies at Columbia. A procession of jobs in city government followed, and in 1994, Gotbaum took over the New-York Historical Society, then on the verge of bankruptcy, and spent the rest of the '90s reviving the museum. She stepped down from the post in 2001 to run for public advocate, a job Mark Green was relinquishing to focus on his ill-fated bid for mayor. After plowing her way through a crowded Democratic primary, Gotbaum won the general election and was reelected in 2005.

Whereas Gotbaum's predecessor, Mark Green, used the office as a staging ground to spar with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani while positioning himself to run for mayor in 2001, few accused Gotbaum of using the post too aggressively. On the contrary, she'd often criticized for being little more than a functionary, and for doing very little in a job without much official responsibility. After choosing not to run again in 2009, these days Gotbaum focuses her attention on various charitable organizations. [Image via Getty]