Won-Soo Kim

Chair, International Advisory Board, (Former) Under Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affair of the United Nations

Won-Soo Kim spent more than 40 years as a South Korean diplomat and international civil servant.  As a Korean diplomat, he served as the Secretary to the President of the Republic of Korea for international security as well as foreign affairs and trade. He then served as the head of policy planning and ambassador for regional cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he successfully led the then Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon’s campaign for the 8th United Nations Secretary-General. Following the election, he moved to the UN as the head of the SDG’s transition team and took up the senior positions of the UN. Over the next decade, he coordinated the UN system’s response to global challenges at the highest level in a variety of roles, including the Assistant Secretary-General and the Deputy Chef de Cabinet to the SG, Senior Coordinator for the UN System, and the Under Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.

He was educated at Seoul National University College of Law (Bachelor of Law) in the Republic of Korea as well as Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (MA), and Stanford University School of Law (JSM and doctoral candidate) in the United States. He was a visiting scholar at Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Asia-Pacific Research Center.

He has taught at Kyung Hee University, Yonsei University and Incheon National University as a chair professor, and advised international organizations as a member of the Eminent Persons Group of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization and as a board member of the Ban Ki-moon Center for Global Citizens in Vienna, Austria.

He is currently the Chair of the International Advisory Board of the TAEJAE Future Consensus Institute, where he leads research on global governance. His research focuses on examining challenges and exploring solutions required to transform global governance away from confrontation to cooperation and to overcome existential threats against humanity, including the specter of a resurgent nuclear arms race, climate and other unsustainability crises, and the risks from uncontrolled emerging technologies.