American Wins Top World Bank Job - Again

April 16, 2012

New head of the World Bank and former Dartmouth College president, Jim Yong Kim, reaches out to shake hands as he arrives for meetings at the bank's headquarters in Washington, April 11, 2012.

The new head of the World Bank is global health expert Dr. Jim Yong Kim, from the United States. While the president of the World Bank has always been an American, this time there was competition for the job by two highly-regarded candidates from developing nations. Kim brings a different approach than predecessors who were experts in foreign policy, business, banking or economics.

Kim obviously is a man of many talents.

Before his nomination to be president of the World Bank, he was president of Dartmouth College...

Where he played a comic role in a student musical.

More seriously, Kim also once headed United Nations' efforts to fight AIDS, founded a non-government organization that promotes healthcare around the world and taught at Harvard's schools of medicine and public health.

In YouTube videos posted by Dartmouth College, Kim tells students a broad education can help them solve tough problems. His education includes degrees in medicine and anthropology.

“In all the problems that I’ve taken on, I have not come at it from a purely philosophical or political perspective, but at one level, I’m a very practically-oriented physician that’s trying to solve problems so that people can live," said Kim.