Kim Won-soo is the chair of the international advisory board of the Taejae Academy (Future Consensus Institute) and the chair professor of Kyung Hee University and has held the same position at Incheon National University. Before that, he has forty years of diplomatic and policy experience which began in 1978, when he joined the Korean Foreign Ministry and then moving to the United Nations in 2007 after successfully leading the campaign and transition team for the newly elected 8th Secretary-General in 2006. Over the last ten years, he served as a most senior official at the United Nations, above the level of Assistant Secretary-General. Most recently he was the Under Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs from 2015 to 2017.

Prior to taking on this post, Mr. Kim worked as the Special Adviser and the Deputy Chief de Cabinet to the Secretary-General from 2007 to 2012, led the Change Implementation team from 2012 to 2013 and then served as the Secretary of the Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB). As Secretary of the CEB from 2013 to 2014, he was in charge of the system wide coordination of key multilateral policy issues relevant to all the executive heads of the United Nations (UN) system, including the Bretton Woods institutions. In these capacities, he played a catalytic role in ensuring more effective and coherent response to global and regional challenges to international peace and security, development as well as human rights and justice by promoting the unity of purpose and the culture of working together within the UN system.