Biography

Dr. Kyung-wha Kang is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Asia Society.

Dr. Kang served as the first female Minister of Foreign Affairs of South Korea, from 2017 to 2021. She is a veteran diplomat in the Korean Foreign Ministry and the United Nations, holding positions in Seoul, New York, and Geneva.

Prior to her appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs, she served as Senior Advisor on Policy to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, as well as Chief of his Transition Team. Dr. Kang also served as Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs from April 2013 to October 2016, and was Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights from January 2007 to March 2013. Her roles in the UN marked the highest positions held in an international organization by a Korean woman.

Before entering the United Nations, Dr. Kang was Director General of International Organizations in the Republic of Korea’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade, becoming the second female Korean diplomat to serve at the director level. She was a Minister in Korea’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations from 2001 to 2005, during which period she chaired the Commission on the Status of Women.

Prior to joining the Foreign Ministry in 1998, Dr. Kang assisted the Speaker of the National Assembly in the fields of women’s advancement and parliamentary diplomacy. Earlier in her career, she worked for the Korean Broadcasting System’s news bureau and international radio bureau, and lectured in universities both in Korea and in the United States.

Dr. Kang graduated from Yonsei University and has an M.A. in mass communication and a Ph.D. in intercultural communication from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is currently a distinguished professor at the Institute for Global Engagement and Empowerment at Yonsei University in Seoul. She is also a trustee of several Korean and international non-governmental organizations.

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