Michael Kim

Michael ByungJu Kim (born 1963) is a Korean American billionaire businessman. He is the co-founder and partner of MBK Partners, a private equity firm headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. He has been called the "Godfather of Asian private equity". Early life Michael B. Kim was born in Jinhae, South Gyeongsang Province in 1963. Kim graduated from Haverford College in 1985 with a degree in English. Kim received an MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1990 and received a Fulbright Scholarship afterwards. Career Kim begin his career as a mergers and acquisitions banker at Goldman Sachs after graduating from Harvard. In 1995, he joined Salomon Smith Barney, where he became Managing Director and COO of Asia-Pacific Investment Banking. He later joined the Carlyle Group as a president of Carlyle Asia until 2005. Kim left Carlyle to found MBK Partners in 2005, which has since grown to over $23.4 billion in assets under management, raising $6.5 billion for its most recent Fund V, becoming the largest independent private equity fund in Asia.