KEI Contributor

Hyoeun Jenny Kim is Ambassador and Deputy Minister for Climate Change in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea since July 2021. She is also chief negotiator of UNFCCC Paris agreement, representing her country. Before taking the role, she was Deputy Director-General of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). GGGI is a treaty-based inter-governmental organization supporting developing countries and emerging economies to achieve economic growth and environmental sustainability together through following new pathway of green growth. She was responsible for managing GGGI’s in-country operations in more than 35 countries, supporting low carbon economic growth in line with Paris Climate Agreement and UNSDGs.

From 2016 to 2018, she was the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Senegal and five neighboring countries. She contributed to building strategic relationships on development cooperation between Korea and West Africa. From 2013 to 2016, as the Director for Strategy, Policy, and Communication at the GGGI, she led the development of the GGGI Strategic Plan 2015-2020, governance structural reform, and outreach.

As a career diplomat in Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she served as Director for Climate Change and Environment Affairs and Director for World Trade Organization (WTO). She served as the Vice-Chair of Trade and Environment Joint Committee of the OECD and the Chair of Budget and Management Committee of the APEC.

She earned her Bachelor’s in political science and diplomacy from Yonsei University in Seoul and a Master’s degree from the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is married with one son. She wrote A Diplomat Must Be a Multiplayer in 2008, describing life of diplomats. Her second book, titled Audacious Challenge to International Organizations, was published in 2013. She also supervised publishing However Long the Night in Korean translation in 2019.