30 Mind Blowing Facts You Should Know About Jim Yong Kim

Jim Yong Kim, famously known by the name Kim Yong, is the 12th and current President of the World Bank since 2012. Here are some very interesting facts about the Korean-American physician and anthropologist:

1. Jim Yong Kim was born on December 08, 1959, in Seoul, South Korea to NhakKeeKim, a dentist and Oaksook Kim. His original name was Kim Yong, which he switched the order of his name to western style and added Jim to it.
2. Kim’s father at the age of nineteen, right after the warescaped from North Korea and went to Seoul. Without a penny he somehow got into medical school but couldn’t afford to eat at cafeteria and have to make good with street food.
3. His family immigrated to United States when he was five years old. He did his schooling at Muscatine High School and later graduated in Human Biology from Brown University in 1982.
4. Kim was valedictorian and president of his class at Muscatine High School. He played both footballs as quarterback and was point guard for the basketball team.
5. Kim was among the first batch of students at the Harvard for experimental MD / PhD program in social science. He was awarded an MD. In 1991 and a PhD in anthropology in 1993.
6. In 1987, he along with Paul Farmer, Todd McCormack, Thomas J. White and Ophelia Dahl, founded ‘Partners In Health,’ a community focused health care program in Haiti. He served more than 100,000 people for infectious diseases.
7. In 1998, the World Health Organization, embraced PHI model of community based care to impoverished communities around the world. They were successful in treating multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis.
8. The PHI program started by Kim now employs more than 13,000 people in 12 countries across the world.
9. He and his team developed a web based ‘community of practice’ GHDonline.org, to connect professional communities and to facilitate timely discussion on critical challenges for the delivery of quality health care to all patients.
10. Kim and his partner’s efforts in making Partners in Health a success story is well documented in the 2017 film, ‘Bending the Arc.’ It won the ‘Best Documentary Feature Film,’ at the ‘Greenwich International Film Festival.’
11. In 2003, Kim joined the World Health Organization after leaving the PIH and was appointed as ‘Advisor to the Director General.’
12. In 2004, he took over as Director, HIV / AIDS department of World Health Organization. He focused on an ambitious ‘3X5 initiative’ that was designed to put three million people in developing countries on AIDS treatment. He achieved this target in 2007.
13. From 1993 to 2009, Kim also worked as lecturer at Harvard Medical School, teaching medicine, social medicine and human rights.
14. He headed various department such as ‘Chair of the Department of Global Health and Science Medicine,’ ‘Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital,’ and ‘Director of the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights.’
15. Kim has been involved in number of research and academic efforts. He focused on developing more effective global health program with systematic approach. Towards this goal, Kim co-founded the ‘Global Health Delivery Project’ in 2007.
16. He became the 17th President of Dartmouth College in 2009 and in the process became the first Asian American to be made the President of an Ivy League institution.In 2011, he appears in a video, dancing and singing with ‘Dartmouth Idol’ finalists.
17. Kim was awarded the MacArthur ‘Genius’ Fellowship in 2003 and he was named one of ‘America’s 25 Best Leaders by the US News & World Report in 2005.
18. In 2006, he was listed as one of the top 100 most influential people in the world by the Time Magazine.
19. As an expert in tuberculosis, Kim chaired or served on a number of committees on international T.B. policy and contributed articles for the leading academic and scientific journals.
20. In January 2010, in response to Haiti earthquake, he mobilized students and faculties to form Dartmouth Haiti Response. This initiative resulted in organizing for the delivery of 18 tons of medical supplies, 25 volunteer medical professionals and over $ 1 million in donation to Haiti.
21. In April 2010, while at Dartmouth College, Kim launched the ‘National College Health Improvement Project,’ to address student’s health issues. As its inaugural program they challenged students in an introductory engineering course to come up with solutions to campus binge drinking.
22. In 2011, at the end of his term at Dartmouth College, there was wide spread dissatisfaction with Kim’s leadership and the student body scrutinized his tenure as an aberration and a failure.
23. With the backing of U.S. President Barack Obama, Kim was named World Bank President on April 16, 2012, and in the process he became the first leader without a political or financial background to be appointed.
24. At the time of his interview with Obama, in response to why would I nominate you and not a macroeconomist. He said i have read your mother’s PhD dissertation, in which her on the ground research had given her better information than a macroeconomist and that’s what I have been doing my entire life.
25. He serves on the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health, an NGO formed to develop the Health Impact Fund proposal.
26. On September 27, 2016, Kim was re-elected as the World Bank President, for five year term beginning July 01, 2017.
27. He has learned to speak Spanish apart from Korean which he learned at the age of 24 when he moved to Korea for his dissertation.
28. In 2010, he was elected to the ‘American Academy of Arts and Science,’ the oldest learned societies in the United States. It is devoted to the advancement and study of the key societal, scientific, and intellectual issues of the day.
29. Kim is married to Younsook Lim, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital, Boston. They have two sons, Thomas and Nicolas Jin.
30. According to Forbes Magazine, Kim is ranked 41stamong the most powerful person in the world, in the year 2018.
31. Jim Yong Kim Net Worth: $31 Million