Jim Yong Kim

Background

Born in Seoul, South Korea in 1959, Jim Yong Kim immigrated with his family to the U.S. at the age of five and grew up in Muscatine, Iowa. His father taught dentistry at the University of Iowa, while his mother received her PhD in philosophy. Kim attended Muscatine High School, where he was valedictorian, president of his class, and played both quarterback for the football team and point guard on the basketball team. After a year and a half at the University of Iowa, he transferred to Brown University, where he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in human biology in 1982. He was awarded an M.D. at Harvard Medical School in 1991, and a PhD in anthropology at Harvard University in 1993. He was among the first enrollees of Harvard's experimental MD/PhD program in the social sciences.

Partners in Health (1987–2003)

Jim Yong Kim, along with Paul Farmer, Todd McCormack, Thomas J. White and Ophelia Dahl, co-founded Partners In Health (PIH) in 1987. The organization began with radical new, community-focused health care programs in Haiti, which executed treatments based on local needs and by training community members to implement them. By the early 1990s, the program in Haiti was serving more than 100,000 people. It achieved remarkable success treating infectious diseases at low cost, spending $150 to $200 to cure tuberculosis patients in their homes, treatment that would have cost $15,000 to $20,000 in a U.S. hospital. Kim was instrumental in designing treatment protocols and cutting deals for cheaper, more effective drugs.

The PIH model was expanded to Peru in 1994. By 1998, extremely successful results curing both common and serious ailments prompted the World Health Organization to embrace the model, and support the adaptation of community-based care to impoverished communities around the world. Particular success in treating multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) prompted international organizations to rededicate efforts to the eradication of the disease, and in June 2002, the World Health Organization adopted prescriptions for dealing with the disease that were virtually the same as PIH had used in Peru. Kim's work with PIH to treat MDR-TB was the first large-scale attempt to treat the disease in a poor country, and the efforts have now been replicated in more than 40 countries around the world.

PIH now employs more than 13,000 people in 12 countries. Kim left the organization as Executive Director in 2003.

Kim's work with Partners in Health is documented in the 2017 film, Bending the Arc.

World Health Organization (2003–2006)

Kim left PIH in 2003 to join the World Health Organization (WHO) as an adviser to the director-general. In March 2004, he was appointed as director of WHO’s HIV/AIDS department, after having success creating programs to fight the disease at PIH. Dr. Kim oversaw all of WHO’s work related to HIV/AIDS, focusing on initiatives to help developing countries scale up their treatment, prevention, and care programs. This included an ambitious “3x5 initiative” that was designed to put three million people in developing countries on AIDS treatment by the end of 2005. The goal was not met until 2007, but according to the WHO, served to push the treatment strategy for AIDS in Africa further and faster than could have otherwise been hoped. As of 2012, the program has treated more than 7 million Africans with HIV.

Harvard University (1993–2009)

Beginning in 1993, Dr. Kim served as a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, eventually holding professorships in medicine, social medicine and human rights. At the time of his departure in 2009, Kim held positions as Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, known internally as "The Four Pillars", a term and concept taken from his earlier WHO work with HIV/AIDS (the 3x5 program).

Over his two decade career working to improve health in developing countries, Kim has been involved in a number of research and academic efforts. In recent years, Kim spearheaded the development of a new field focused on improving the implementation and delivery of health interventions in poor communities around the world. His programs operate with the philosophy that progress in developing more effective global health programs has been hindered by the paucity of large-scale systematic approaches to improving program design. This new field will rigorously gather, analyze, and widely disseminate a comprehensive body of practical, actionable insights on effective global health delivery. Towards these goals, Kim co-founded the Global Health Delivery Project, a joint initiative of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Social Medicine and the Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness. The global health field case studies produced by this project form the core of a new global health delivery curriculum now taught at Harvard School of Public Health. Kim’s team also developed a web-based “community of practice”, GHDonline.org, to allow practitioners around the world to easily access information, share expertise, and engage in real-time problem solving.

During his time at Harvard, Kim published numerous articles for leading academic and scientific journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Science, and others; and contributed to several books. An expert in tuberculosis, Kim also chaired or served on a number of committees on international TB policy.

Dartmouth College (2009–2012)

In March 2009, Kim was named the 17th President of Dartmouth College, becoming the first Asian-American to assume the post of president at an Ivy League institution. He oversaw the development of several innovative programs at Dartmouth, utilizing his past experience in health care and international affairs. In January 2010, Kim helped partner Dartmouth students and faculty with the organization he co-founded, Partners In Health, and other organizations, to respond to the devastating earthquake in Haiti, forming the Dartmouth Haiti Response. The initiative resulted in over $1 million in donations, the delivery of 18 tons of medical supplies and 25 volunteer medical professionals to Haiti, as well as hundreds of student volunteers contributing on campus. In April 2010, Kim launched the National College Health Improvement Project (NCHIP), which convenes a number of expert institutions to develop quantitative methods to address student health issues. The project launched its inaugural program, an effort to address binge drinking, in April 2011. In May 2010, Kim helped secure a $35 million anonymous grant to establish the Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science. The Center creates a groundbreaking new field of graduate study, fostering international collaboration between researchers and medical practitioners to design, implement, and scale new models of high-quality low-cost care. In 2012, following considerable concern and an extended effort by Kim to address sexual violence on campus, Dartmouth adopted a new campus-wide initiative to educate students on the importance of bystander intervention in sexual assault cases as part of a larger Sexual Assault Awareness Program.

Controversies during tenure

In 2011, Kim was criticized for refusing to release the college's budget, prompting the passage of a resolution by faculty demanding more details. Kim answered this criticism by releasing a large supplementary report on the budget and holding a public meeting with faculty who afterward expressed satisfaction with the response. However, Kim did not address a request by the Student Assembly asking for access to information about all budget items exceeding $10,000. In 2011, a handful of editorials appeared in Dartmouth's student newspaper expressing dissatisfaction with Kim's presidency, with one describing Kim as "unpopular among many students these days." His leadership has also been criticized in the wake of a hazing scandal, which resulted in charges against the fraternity and the creation of a task force to address hazing; and amidst comments from some that Kim did not spend enough time on campus. Subsequent to Kim's announcement that he would leave Dartmouth for the World Bank if elected, Kim's presidency was scrutinized by the student body president as an "aberration" and a failure. Forbes also chastised Kim's presidency at Dartmouth, describing it as "disappointing" and a "cautionary tale" to other narcissistic leaders. A valedictorian from the Class of 2012 noted that in addition to Kim leaving for the World Bank presidency, "word on the street is he's already looking for the next big job."

World Bank presidency (2012–)

On March 23, 2012, U.S. President Barack Obama announced his nomination of Jim Yong Kim to become the next president of the World Bank. That same day Jim Yong Kim sent a letter addressed to the Dartmouth Community stating that the position was "one of the most critical institutions fighting poverty and providing assistance to developing countries in the world today. After much reflection, I have accepted this nomination to national and global service" and that "if I am elected, our Board will take appropriate steps to ensure continuity of leadership and determine the timing of a search. For now, I remain president of Dartmouth."

On April 16, 2012, the World Bank officially elected Kim as its next president. He is the first Bank leader whose professional background is not in the political or financial sectors, and the first to have previous experience personally tackling health issues in developing countries.

In a statement from Dr. Jim Yong Kim regarding his selection as the president, he said that the World Bank would deliver more powerful results to support sustained growth, prioritize evidence-based solutions over ideology, and amplify the voices of developing countries.

Kim stated upon assuming office that he was "honored to assume the Presidency of the World Bank Group. I do so at a moment that is pivotal for the global economy, and defining for the World Bank as an institution."

On September 27, 2016, Kim was re-elected as the World Bank president, for a five-year term beginning July 1, 2017.

Personal life

Kim, who is married to Younsook Lim, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital Boston, has two children; a son, Thomas, who was born in 2000, and a second son, Nico, who was born in 2009. He is actively involved in a variety of sports, including basketball, volleyball, tennis, and golf. He was the quarterback for his school's football team and point guard for his school's basketball team. He has a golf handicap of 5 (as of 2012). He speaks Korean which he learned at the age of 24 when he moved to Korea for his dissertation. He also has learned to speak Spanish.

Board memberships and honors

Kim received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003, was named one of America's 25 Best Leaders by US News & World Report in 2005, and in 2006 was listed as one of the top 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine. He serves on the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health, the NGO formed to develop the Health Impact Fund proposal. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the United States National Academies. Kim was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010.

Publications