Law360.com profiled the Philanthropy Roundtable’s new Vice President of Operations and General Counsel Jenny Kim. Read on to learn why Kim joined the Roundtable team.
In-house counsel Jenny Kim has brought her passion for helping people from Koch Industries Inc. to an organization that specializes in aiding others, as Kim starts her second week as general counsel of the Philanthropy Roundtable.
The Roundtable, based in the Washington area, offers a number of programs and initiatives for various groups, such as veterans. It also offers webinars, conferences and publications to guide donors in the proper way to make philanthropic gifts, to maximize tax advantages and to protect donor intent. And it defends donors’ constitutional rights, such as privacy and free speech.
Kim, as the first general counsel the Roundtable has had, told Law360 Pulse on Tuesday that she was focusing on working with senior leadership to set priorities for her new role. She said she was “talking to everyone and listening a lot, uncovering people’s pain points.”
While she is the sole lawyer in her department, Kim is also vice president of operations and has a small staff to help with research and other duties.
As a general counsel, she said it’s important to see that “people are not apps. We must get outside ourselves and really understand how law impacts practical lives every day.”
She said her parents had immigrated from South Korea to Canada, where she was born, and eventually to the U.S. when she was six years old. “I believe in people,” she said, “and in this country.”
She said she left her deputy general counsel job at Koch, where she had worked for 13 years, because the Roundtable “was an opportunity I couldn’t let go. And I am so impressed with CEO Elise Westhoff’s vision for philanthropy, to advance a free and robust civil society where people can share ideas.”
Continue reading at Law360.com.
