Introducing President Kim
How do you stop the deadly spread of tuberculosis in Bangladesh, where most people live hundreds of miles from the nearest clinic? A nonprofit called BRAC solved the problem by deputizing poor local women to treat their neighbors, paying them a living wage but only after they could guarantee that their patients had completed the full six-month program. For the really poor women, they gave direct financial support until they were able to get through their first cohort of patients.
"That's just a brilliant insight into getting the incentives right for very poor people," says Dr. Jim Yong Kim, who became Dartmouth College's 17th president this summer. "BRAC, through this and many other programs, has played a huge role in keeping Bangladesh afloat."
The former director of the World Health Organization's HIV/AIDS department and co-chair, with Michael Porter, of Harvard's Global Health Delivery Project, Kim has come to believe that most problems in international medicine are not ones of medical knowledge or even political will, but of effective management. "When it comes to our most cherished social goals," he says, "we have tolerated an extremely poor level of execution."
At first blush, the Dartmouth presidency might seem a departure career-wise for Kim. But he sees the opportunity to influence a large number of students by teaching them to tackle complex problems using cooperation—an effort in which he sees Tuck playing a role. "Tuck has done this better than any other business school in the world," he says. "Everyone says that Tuck students work extremely well in groups. What if they said that about every Dartmouth college graduate?"
"His ultimate goal is for Dartmouth students to aspire to lead in whatever way they decide in their careers," adds Dean Paul Danos. "Tuck has always been focused on leadership, so we have a lot to contribute."
In addition, notes Danos, Kim's expertise places him at the crossroads of two of the hottest fields in business—social responsibility and health care. Indeed, The Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy and Clinical Practice has already been at the center of the national health care debate. But Kim envisions an even more important role for Dartmouth as an incubator for health-care strategy. "With collaboration between the medical school, Tuck, and the engineering school, we can be the center of the world for research and teaching and policy around health-care delivery," he says.
While Kim acknowledges that not all students at Tuck—let alone Dartmouth—will follow this path, he hopes that he can inspire students to consider the social ramifications of whatever they do. "I don't care what our students go into," he says. "But I hope that they will take on challenges with extremely high degrees of excellence, and also be seen as extremely ethical people. If I can in some way contribute to that, I'll consider my tenure a success."
