Dartmouth President Named New Head of World Bank

The World Bank on Monday named Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim at its next chief, selecting President Obama's nominee to succeed Robert Zoellick atop the international institution once his current five-year term ends in June.

The bank made the announcement in a prepared statement that, as the Washington Post notes, made no mention of consensus among the board that made the selection, saying only that "the final nominees received support from different member countries, which reflected the high caliber of the candidates. We all look forward to working with Dr. Kim."

Obama tapped Kim for the job last month, but the well-known global health expert faced unprecedented competition for the coveted post from nominees from Nigeria and Colombia.

Thanks to an informal deal with Europe, the bank has traditionally been led by an American while the International Monetary Fund is run by a European. But leaders in a number of developing countries fought this time around to place one of their own atop the World Bank.

Kim has led the Ivy League college for the past three years and previously worked at the World Health Organization. The Associated Press explains Obama had hoped Kim's experience would "help counter criticism from developing countries that have grown weary of the U.S. stranglehold on the World Bank presidency."

Obama's decision to nominate Kim came as something of a surprise. The president and his team reportedly considered more than a dozen candidates, including several high-profile figures in the administration. At one point both Larry Summers and Hillary Clinton had been rumored to be on the president's short list, and former Clinton economic adviser Laura D’Andrea Tyson had been seen by many as the likely choice.

You can read Dr. Kim's official Dartmouth bio here. Here's a snippet:

Born in Seoul, Korea in 1959, Jim Yong Kim moved with his family to the United States at the age of five and grew up in Muscatine, Iowa. His father, a dentist, also taught at the University of Iowa, where his mother received her Ph.D. in philosophy. Kim attended Muscatine High School, where he was valedictorian and president of his class and played quarterback for the football team. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. from Brown University in 1982. He was awarded an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1991, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University, Department of Anthropology, in 1993. He is actively involved in a variety of sports including basketball, volleyball, tennis and golf.