Finance Minister nominee Kim Dong-yeon is the president of Ajou University in Gyeonggi Province and served as the minister of policy coordination before stepping down from the post in 2014.

Kim started to earn money at the age of 17 to help support his widowed mother and three siblings, right after graduating high school. He was a bank clerk who continued his studies by attending evening courses at a local college. 

At 25, he passed the civil servants administration exam and joined the economic planning board, a budget planning body under the Prime Minister‘s Office which later was absorbed to the Finance Ministry.

He spent years drawing up fiscal policies and budget planning at the ministry. He was named presidential secretary for economy and finance during the Lee Myung-bak administration. In 2013, he was appointed as the minister of policy coordination, an organization affiliated to the Prime Minister’s Office. A year later, he stepped down from the post, saying he had to take care of his family.

He is from Eumseong, North Chungcheong Province, and graduated from Michigan University with a Ph.D in policy studies.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)