Biography
After earning his B.A. from Yale with a double major in Political Science and Economics, followed by a J.D. degree from Harvard, Young Joon Kim spent his entire career at the New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul offices of the international law firm Milbank LLP, where he focused on global projects, energy and infrastructure finance.
Kim says that, while his Yale education was truly transformative — giving him a lifelong joy of learning and instilling the basic values that guided his personal and professional life — it was not a given. Arriving in the United States from Korea as a 16-year-old with little time to establish a robust educational "portfolio," he was thrilled that Yale decided to give him a chance. Today, in addition to being a grateful alumnus, he is also the proud father of two Yalie sons, Classes of 2009 and 2016.
Kim serves on the board of the leading human-rights law foundation in Korea. As a Trustee of the Asian University for Women (AUW), he has been passionately involved in an effort to cultivate young women as leaders from the most disadvantaged parts of the developing world. For Yale he has served as an At-Large Delegate to the YAA Assembly, as vice chair of the 25th Reunion Committee for the Class of 1980, and as an ASC interviewer in Hong Kong and Korea. He helped found the Association of Asian-American Yale Alumni, and is the current president of the Yale Club of Korea.