Kang Kyung-wha (; born April 7, 1955) is a South Korean diplomat and politician who served as the first female Foreign Minister of South Korea under President Moon Jae-in from 2017 to 2021 as well as the first woman nominated for and appointed to the position. She is also the first Korean woman to hold a high-level position in the United Nations. Previously, Kang was the first non-exam-taker to become a director-general in the ministry. She is the first South Korean foreign minister to join the official South Korean delegation for the inter-Korean summit as well as to visit Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.
Early life and education
Kang was born in Seoul, South Korea. Her father, born in Pyongyang, North Korea, was a famous announcer of South Korea's Korean Broadcasting System as well as a member of its second board of directors. Her family moved to Washington, D.C. following her father's career at Voice of America in 1964 and came back to Seoul after two years.
Kang attended Ewha Girls' High School in Seoul. She graduated from Yonsei University with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Diplomacy. She obtained an M.A. in mass communication and a Ph.D. defending a doctoral thesis on intercultural communication from University of Massachusetts Amherst, United States.
Career
Early career
In the beginning of her career, Kang worked for the Korean Broadcasting System - just like her father - as a producer of English Service Division of Radio Korea. As an associate professor, she lectured at Cleveland State University, Ohio and Sejong University, Seoul. Between and after her career in universities, she assisted several Speakers of the National Assembly of South Korea on global issues in the fields of human rights, women's advancement and parliamentary diplomacy as Secretary for International Relations and an interpreter.
She was also active in women's organizations in Korea, serving as the spokeswoman of the Korean Women's NGO Committee for the Beijing Conference in 1995, a member of the International Relations Committee of the Korean National Council of Women, and a director of Korean Institute for Women and Politics.
In the 1990s Kang was the English voice of Seoul subway system.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
In 1998 Kang joined the Korean Foreign Service, without ever having passed the Foreign Service Exam, as the acting Senior Research Officer of Foreign Ministry's Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security. In 1999 she was specially employed as Senior Advisor and Principal Speechwriter to the Foreign Minister and Principal Interpreter to the President. While working as the president's interpreter for three years, she gained then-President Kim's confidence due to her interpretation during his phone call with U.S. president Clinton.
From September 2001 to July 2005, Kang was Minister-Counselor and later Minister at Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations. During that time, she chaired the Commission on the Status of Women for its 48th and 49th session. Before and after working at the Permanent Mission, she worked as Deputy Director-General and Director General for the International Organisations of the Foreign Ministry. Later, she was appointed as Ambassador-at-Large for Global Affairs of the Ministry.
United Nations
Kang held key roles in the United Nations under three consecutive Secretaries-General, from Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon to the current officeholder, Antonio Guterres. In September 2006, Kofi Annan appointed her as Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, equivalent to Assistant Secretary-General, after seeing her potential when she chaired the UN commission on women. She was appointed by Ban Ki-moon as Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator and Assistant Secretary-General for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in March 2013. In October 2016, she was appointed by then-Secretary-General-elect, António Guterres as Chief of the Secretary-General-designate's Transition Team. Later in February 2017, she continued to work with Secretary-General Guterres as his Senior Advisor on Policy, equivalent to Under-Secretary-General, before resigning for the foreign minister of South Korea.