Jim Yong Kim

One of the most important things about leadership is that you have to have the kind of humility that will allow you to be coached.

— Jim Yong Kim

One of the lessons of leadership worth emphasizing is that you want to get to know other great leaders and take their advice. At some point in your development, it's only people who've been in the seat of having to be leaders who can help you in a deep way.

— Jim Yong Kim

One of the most important things about leadership is that you have to have the kind of humility that will allow you to be coached.

— Jim Yong Kim

In 1990, East Asia, South Asia, and Africa all had the same percentage of people living in extreme poverty: 55 percent. Now, East Asia is at ten percent, and South Asia has gone down to 30 percent. In Africa, it’s still 55 percent. Why did we succeed in East Asia, and why are we falling behind in Africa? This year, we’re going to be lending over $60 billion. That seems like a lot of money, but every year, sub-Saharan Africa requires about $100 billion in new investment in infrastructure.

— Jim Yong Kim

In the private sector, companies have experts running all over the place figuring out the details of how to solve particular problems, and then they share them with the rest of the organization. But in global health, global education, or global development, that’s been really difficult to do.

— Jim Yong Kim

We think it’s extremely important to have lots of feedback and input from civil society organizations. Something broad like, Does democracy lead to growth? -- these are very difficult questions to answer. It’s almost academic.

— Jim Yong Kim

China and India played a much larger role than they did before in providing these funds for the poorest countries.

— Jim Yong Kim

I have very clear ideas about what it’s going to take to end extreme poverty and to share prosperity. In fact, this is what I’ve been doing my whole life. I feel like I’m here for a reason.

— Jim Yong Kim

We’re interested in the peace but we understand that peace, justice and development go hand in hand. And I think we sent that message very strongly.

— Jim Yong Kim

We’re thinking about other ways we can bring the organizations together. It was always intended that the UN, a political organization focused on justice and development, would work together with the financial organizations in order to make the world a better place.

— Jim Yong Kim

We are trying to end poverty in the world by 2030 and we’re going to focus especially on the well-being of the bottom 40 per cent of every country.

— Jim Yong Kim

If we can unlock the full potential of the World Bank Group staff, I think we can have an even more transformational impact in country after country in the world.

— Jim Yong Kim

So the fact that I had worked in more than a dozen countries and have been working for 25 years trying to implement health, education and social protection programmes, I think really helped me inside the World Bank Group and helped me to feel a sense of closeness to our frontline staff. But it’s a complicated organization… I’m still learning… and the ethnography will continue until I’m done with my work at the World Bank Group.

— Jim Yong Kim

No matter how good you think you are as a leader, my goodness, the people around you will have all kinds of ideas for how you can get better. So for me, the most fundamental thing about leadership is to have the humility to continue to get feedback and to try to get better - because your job is to try to help everybody else get better.

— Jim Yong Kim