Ambassador Young-mok Kim assumed his current post as the Consul General of the Republic of Korea in New York in August 2010. He brought to his office his extensive and unique career with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea since 1976, including his three-year appointment as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Korea to the Islamic Republic of Iran before his role in New York.

Furthermore, Ambassador Kim held a number of key positions on Korea-U.S. bilateral relations or the security of the Korean peninsula. He served as a Political Secretary at the Korean Embassy in Washington D.C. during the time of “Sea Change” (Soviet collapse, Gulf war, German Unification) and assumed the posts of Director and Deputy Director General of the North American Affairs Bureau of then-Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in 1992 and 1998, respectively. During his service at MOFA, he concurrently served as the Director-General of the Office of Planning for the Light Water Reactor Project in 1995, which was responsible for implementing the “General Agreement” (also known as “Agreed Framework”) between the United States and North Korea on nuclear, political and security arrangements. He was one of the key negotiators for the establishment of an international consortium, Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), for dealing with nuclear project in North Korea.

He also served in New York as a Minister at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations in New York from 1999 to 2002. In 2003 he was appointed as the Deputy Executive Director of KEDO to head the nuclear power project implementation and policies toward North Korea. He participated in a number of negotiations with North Korea on nuclear programs and security issues designing the mission of Korea Energy Development Organization until 2005.

His foreign posts also include his appointments in Côte d'Ivoire and Singapore. Domestically in Korea, he served as a special advisor to the Governor for foreign investment and exchange program in GyeongGi Province, the largest metropolitan province of Korea.

As Korea’s Ambassador to Iran, he closely monitored political, nuclear and socio-economic developments of that country as well as conducting a wide range of interaction with institutions and companies of interest.

As a Consul General in New York, of which his jurisdiction includes northeastern parts of the U.S. (New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware), he seeks to promote trade and investment between Korea and the United States, help in his capacity to link between the public and private sectors, including cultural-media corporations, and assist community growth.

He graduated from the Department of French Language and Literature at Seoul National University in 1976 and received his diplôme in International Relations at the International Institute of Public Administration in Paris, France in 1982. He was a visiting scholar at the Columbia University in 2002.

Ambassador Kim is married with one son and one daughter.

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