Prior to joining INSEAD, he was a professor at the University of Michigan Business School, USA. He has served as a board member as well as an advisor for a number of multinational corporations in Europe, the U.S. and Pacific Asia. He is an advisory member for the European Union. He was born in Korea.

Kim is a fellow of the World Economic Forum. His Harvard Business Review articles, co--authored with Renee Mauborgne, are worldwide bestsellers and have sold over a half a million reprints. Their Value Innovation and Fair Process articles were selected as among the best classic articles ever published in Harvard Business Review. They have co-authored articles in The Wall Street Journal, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Asian Wall Street Journal, and numerous journals.

Kim has published numerous articles on strategy and managing the multinational which can be found in: Academy of Management Journal, Management Science, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of International Business Studies, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, and others. He is the co-author of the Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant (Harvard Business School Press, 2005). Blue Ocean Strategy has become an "International Bestseller", after reaching the "Wall Street Journal Bestseller", "BusinessWeek Bestseller", and "National (American) Bestseller" status. It is being published in 30 languages, breaking HBSP's historical record of most foreign language translations ever achieved. Blue Ocean Strategy won the Best Business Book of 2005 Prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

It was also selected as the number one Strategy Book of 2005 by Strategy + Business, Booz Allen & Hamilton's leading business magazine, and as a Top Ten Business Book of 2005 by Amazon.com.

Kim is a winner of the Eldridge Haynes Prize, awarded by the Academy of International Business and the Eldridge Haynes Memorial Trust of Business International, for the best original paper in the field of international business. He was selected for Thinkers 50, the global ranking of business thinkers, and was named along with his colleague Renee Mauborgne, as "the number one gurus of the future" by L'Expansion, one of France's leading business magazines. The Sunday Times (London) called them "two of Europe's brightest business thinkers. Kim and Mauborgne provide a sizeable challenge to the way managers think about and practice strategy." The Observer called Kim and Mauborgne, "the next big gurus to hit the business world."

Kim and Mauborgne co-founded the Value Innovation Network (VIN), a global community of practice on the Value Innovation family of concepts that they created. VIN embraces academics, consultants, executives, and government officers. Kim is also a board member of the Value Innovation Action Tank (VIAT), a non-profit organization, which has 15 Singapore government ministeries and agencies as founding partners. VIAT was established in March 2004 to bring Value Innovation to the country's private, public and people sectors. The Times (London) said, "the ultimate centre of excellence is one which does not cost the business school any money, but which positions its faculty as leaders in its field, creator of practical ideas, and direct influencer of governments. In this, Singapore's Value Innovation Action Tank (VIAT) is probably the benchmark. VIAT aims to convert Kim and Mauborgne's ideas into reality by using a variety of frameworks, processes, tools and educational programmes."