Kim Ng

School University of Chicago
High School Ridgewood (NJ) High School

Born November 17, 1968 in Indianapolis, IN USA

Biographical Information[edit]

Kim Ng was the Vice President and Assistant General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2001 to 2011. On March 8, 2011, she was named Senior Vice-President of baseball operations for Major League Baseball, reporting to newly-named Executive Vice-President Joe Torre, previously the Dodgers' manager. On November 13, 2020, she was named General Manager of the Miami Marlins, becoming not only the first woman to be a General Manager in Major League Baseball, but the first in North American men's sports.

Of Vietnamese origin, Ng was born in Indianapolis, IN but grew up in Queens, NY. The oldest of five girls, she attended the University of Chicago where she played softball and obtained a bachelor's degree in public policy. She applied for a variety of sports-related jobs after graduation, and was accepted for an internship with the Chicago White Sox in 1991. She was talented in the nascent field of computers and data analysis and impressed the organization with her skills, landing her a full-time entry-level job. To her surprise, she ended up in the baseball operations side of the business, and not in marketing, where she had expected to work. White Sox GM Dan Evans was impressed by her analytical ability and attention to detail and he quickly pegged her as someone who could aspire to senior positions, and he took her under his wing. She was also lucky in starting out at a time when front offices were starting to hire persons with different profiles, which would result in a class of highly-educated young GMs who had never played the game.

In 1997, she took a job with Major League Baseball as director of waivers and records for the American League office. The position required her to know all the arcane details of the Major League rules and help interpret them for General Managers. This allowed her to meet all of the league's GMs, including Brian Cashman of the New York Yankees, who was so impressed with her that he hired her as Assistant General Manager in 1998. At the time, Kim was the youngest Assistant General Manager in the game. She was put in charge of the Yankees' salary arbitration cases and proved very talented in this sensitive file, both in assessing the value of players, and in conducting negotiations to avoid the cases having to actually be argued before an arbitrator. She was also involved in contract negotiations with star players. She was the second woman to have the title of Assistant General Manager, following Elaine Weddington Steward, hired by the Boston Red Sox in 1990

In 2002, her former mentor Evans, now GM of the Los Angeles Dodgers, lured her away from the Yankees. She worked under a succession of bosses, including Paul DePodesta and Ned Colletti, until leaving for her senior position with MLB. In 2005, Ng was interviewed by the Dodgers for their vacant GM job but was passed over for Colletti. She also interviewed for the Seattle Mariners' GM job in 2008 and with the San Diego Padres in 2009.

In her position with Major League Baseball, Ng was put in charge of implementing some of the changes to the signing of players not subjected to the amateur draft that were included in the Collective Bargaining Agreement reached at the end of 2011. These included a reform of how Latin American amateur players could be signed, and meant a greater involvement by MLB in setting up showcases and an "International Talent Committee" that aimed to curb the rampant abuse of young players by scouts and other intermediaries.

In 2014, her name surfaced again as one of the top candidates to replace fired Padres GM Josh Byrnes, being one of four contenders to be asked for a second interview, out of an initial pool of 14 candidates. She lost out to A.J. Preller, however. She finally was appointed to the top job in 2020, when the Marlins selected her to replace General Manager Michael Hill, who had been let go after the Marlins had surprised everyone by making it to the postseason during the shortened 2020 season. She was taking the reins of an up-and-coming team loaded with young talent. Her reaction was as follows: "This challenge is one I don’t take lightly. When I got into this business, it seemed unlikely a woman would lead a major league team, but I am dogged in the pursuit of my goals." Her appointment was extremely well received around the industry, as many pointed out that Ng's credentials were impeccable and that she would likely have acceded to the GM ranks years earlier had she not been a woman, and a member of a racial minority to boot. When team President Derek Jeter stepped down unexpectedly a little over a year later, in February of 2022, she took on even more responsibility, overseeing all baseball matters for the team, while another woman, Caroline O'Connor, was in charge of business dealings.

In March 2023, she was one of 27 persons appointed by President Joe Biden to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, & Nutrition. Former Philadelphia Phillies player Ryan Howard was also among the appointees. The Marlins had a very successful season in 2023, making it to the postseason as a wild card team, but Ng decided to decline a mutual option for 2024 over differences with the team's ownership group.

Preceded by
Michael Hill

Miami Marlins General Manager
2020-2023

Succeeded by
Peter Bendix

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