Jim Yong Kim announced that he would step down next month, more than three years before his current term was due to expire.
The decision ends Kim’s six-year tenure and may give US President Donald Trump decisive influence over the future leadership of the 189-member global development lender.
“It has been a great honor to serve as president of this remarkable institution, full of passionate individuals dedicated to the mission of ending extreme poverty in our lifetime,” Kim, 59, said in a statement.
Kim, who became the bank’s president in 2012, is to join an unnamed firm focusing on investments in developing countries, the bank said in a statement, and will return to the board of Partners-in-Health, which he co-founded.
World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva will serve as interim president upon Kim’s February 1 departure, the bank said in a statement.
Under Kim’s leadership, the bank set the goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 and ramped up financing.
Last year, it also won approval for a sharp $13 billion capital increase after acceding to requests from the Trump administration to curb loans to high-income countries like China.
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