Jim Yong Kim

Why you should listen

Jim Yong Kim served as the 12th president of the World Bank Group. Soon after he assumed his position in July 2012, the organization established two goals to guide its work: to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to boost shared prosperity, focusing on the bottom 40 percent of the population in developing countries. In September 2016, the World Bank Group Board unanimously reappointed Kim to a second five-year term as president. In early 2019, Kim resigned from the World Bank to join a firm focused on infrastructure investments.

During his first term, the World Bank Group supported the development priorities of countries at levels never seen outside a financial crisis and, with its partners, achieved two successive, record replenishments of the World Bank Group’s fund for the poorest. The institution also launched several innovative financial instruments, including facilities to address infrastructure needs, prevent pandemics and help the millions of people forcibly displaced from their homes by climate shocks, conflict, and violence.

Kim's career has revolved around health, education and delivering services to the poor. In 1987, he co-founded Partners In Health, a nonprofit medical organization that works in poor communities on four continents. He has received a MacArthur "genius" grant, was recognized as one of America's "25 Best Leaders" by U.S. News & World Report and was named one of TIME magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World.