After completing his studies at Seoul National University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in international relations in 1970, Ab Ki-moon embarked on a diplomatic career in 1979 under the military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee in South Korea.
He later worked in New Delhi in 1972 and received the Order of Service Merit from the South Korean government in 1975 and 1986 for his outstanding contributions to the country's international relations.
From 1980 to 1988, Ban Ki-moon served as a diplomat under President Chun Doo-hwan, who rose to power through a military coup, and was appointed Director of the United Nations Division in November 1980.
He went on to earn his master's degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1985, and took on various roles at the South Korean embassy in Washington, including Director General of the South Korean Office for American Affairs.
After serving as First Secretary of the State's Permanent Monitoring Mission to the UN in New York, Ban Ki-moon was elected vice chairman of the South-North Joint Nuclear Control Commission in 1992 and proposed twice as Deputy Minister for Policy Planning and International Organizations.
He later became Secretary to the South Korean President for Foreign Affairs and State Security in 1996 and was promoted to Vice Foreign Minister in 2000. As ambassador to Austria, he was elected chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO PrepCom) in 1999.
From February 2003, Ban Ki-moon worked as a foreign policy advisor to President Roh Moo-hyun and replaced Yoon Young-kwan as Foreign and Trade Minister in 2004. He played a key role in the "Six-Party Talks" in Beijing on the nuclear crisis in North Korea in September 2005.
Ban Ki-moon received the Grand Decoration of Honor in Austria in 2001 and the Grand Cross of Rio Branco in Brazil in 2002. He was honored with the Korean Society's Van Fleet Award in New York in September 2005 for his contributions to U.S.-Korean friendship.
In January 2006, Ban Ki-moon was nominated by the government of South Korea as a candidate for election as the new UN Secretary-General to succeed Kofi Annan. On October 13, 2006, he was confirmed for the office of UN Secretary General by the UN General Assembly in New York, where he was sworn in on January 1, 2007.
Throughout his career, Ban Ki-moon has been married to his former classmate Yoo Soon-taek since 1966 and is the father of a son and two daughters.
