Mike Kim

On New Year's Day 2003, Kim decided to take some time off of business and gave up his financial planning business in Chicago, Illinois, and left for China on a one-way ticket carrying little more than two duffle bags. While living near the North Korean border, he operated undercover as a student of North Korean taekwondo, training under two North Korean masters —eventually receiving a second-degree blackbelt (he is also a Brazilian Jiujitsu purple belt).[2] He founded Crossing Borders, a nonprofit dedicated to providing humanitarian assistance to North Korean refugees. In his book, he estimated that during his time on the field over 60% of female defectors were victims of sex trafficking. The organization has been a regular contributor to the State Department's Annual Trafficking in Persons Report and has testified at a congressional hearing on the topic of combating human trafficking in China.[3]

Kim frequently appears in the media: He was a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart[4] and has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and on CNN Anderson Cooper 360. He has been interviewed by major international media groups such as Fox News, CNN, BBC, Reuters, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Yonhap News Agency, The Korea Times, The Korea Daily, and Korean Broadcasting System. Kim speaks to audiences worldwide, including a variety of companies, universities, and government organizations on five continents.

The interview with Jon Stewart resulted in interest from Hollywood in turning Escaping North Korea into a motion picture. The book-to-film project is in development with actor/producer Daniel Dae Kim (Lost, Hawaii Five-O).[5][6]

Kim received his MBA from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business.[7] He is also a 1999 graduate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In interviews, Kim has referred to the late Ambassador Mark Palmer as a mentor and a person who has deeply influenced him by his example of working effectively in the business, nonprofit, and government sectors. Palmer wrote the foreword to Escaping North Korea and commented, “This is a story of heroes. Of North Koreans increasingly and courageously evading the dictates of the system at home to survive and risking their lives to flee the world's most repressive dictatorship. And of a heroic young Korean American, the author, Mike Kim, who risked his own life for four years on the China-North Korea border to help them."

In June 2010, Kim was voted in as a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Kim now serves as a Crossing Borders board member and donor.

Kim writes for The Huffington Post Blog[8] and CNN Opinion.[9]

• Escaping North Korea Website
• Interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
• Interview on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360
• Interview on Fox with Bill Hemmer
• Yonhap News Agency Interview (in Korean)