Hoonae Kim (김훈애)

Ms. Hoonae Kim is an international development professional with three decades of experience in international development financing and policy formulation. Over the years, Ms. Hoonae Kim has gained first-hand knowledge of the cultural, institutional, and political factors that shape the socioeconomic systems of countries and their ability to successfully invest in their own future. She has directed and managed large multi-sectoral programs across countries, often at critical times in their political and economic development. She has been Director for Asia and the Pacific Region (APR) for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) where she directed and led managers of programs serving 31 countries. At the World Bank, during the onset of the Arab Spring, she managed diverse agricultural and environmental programs including water and green growth investments with teams covering 22 countries in North Africa, the Middle East, and the Gulf Countries. During Vietnam’s growth take-off, she lived in Hanoi for four years to develop plans and manage World Bank lending activities to seven economic sectors (agriculture and rural development, energy, environment, transport, urban and water, social). During the early 1990s, she was part of the initial World Bank response team in Soviet Union countries during their transition from planned economies to market economies. She led multi-country programs on rural redevelopment, environment reforms, and sustainable social development in the Baltic, Eastern European, and Central Asian countries.

Ms. Hoonae Kim was the first Korean woman to join the highly selective Young Professional Program at the World Bank Group in 1984. (This staffing program selected yearly less than 25 individuals out of 5,000 candidates from both advanced and developing countries around the world.) She has studied at UC Berkeley (California, USA), McGill University (Montreal, Canada) and Cornell University (New York, USA). She has also participated in Executive Management Programs at Harvard University (US) and Cambridge University (UK). hoonaekim@gmail.com.