Chief People Officer, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary
Working at Hanmi Bank in Los Angeles is not just business to Vivian Kim — it's personal.
Hanmi was created 40 years ago with the mission to help bank the Korean American community, a segment that was overlooked by other mainstream financial institutions. Kim is Korean American. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. in 1990 and are small-business owners operating several laundromats.
"It is a very common immigrant story," Kim said of her parents. "They are more comfortable with their native language."
Kim was working as a litigator for a law firm when she was approached by an acquaintance from the Korean American Bar Association of Southern California to apply for an opening at Hanmi.
"I had been thinking about going in-house, but I initially didn't think I had the right type of experience to match the list of requirements in the posted corporate counsel job description," Kim said. "The general counsel at the time saw beyond my resume and focused on my strengths, including my eagerness to learn, problem solving skills with cultural sensitivity, and language skills." Kim is bilingual in English and Korean.
Kim has grown her skillset with the bank over the last seven years. She joined the bank as a vice president in corporate counsel and is now its general counsel, corporate secretary and chief people officer for the $7.4 billion-asset bank.
Reporting to CEO Bonnie Lee, she is responsible for providing legal support to the executive management team and the board on all aspects of regulatory compliance and corporate governance. She also provides guidance on mergers and acquisitions, strategic initiatives, new products and services and compliance with new state and federal laws. Additionally, she is in charge of human resources, corporate training and development and employee recruitment.
Part of Kim's work has been revamping the employee experience since COVID-19. She took the pandemic as an opportunity to sharpen the focus on what kind of employer Hanmi could be. This has involved looking at how to better engage employees, such as providing more flexibility by allowing staff members to work remotely. She created a cross-functional employee engagement committee that organizes activities, such as raffles for branded merchandise and concert tickets and holiday themed photo contests, to help bolster morale. And she has revamped the employee review process by streamlining the questions and allowing for more responses that highlighted an individual's accomplishments.
"It helped give our managers a good touch point where they could have one complete conversation," Kim added. "Where does the employee want to go?"
Kim is also working to ensure that the bank's workforce is diverse and inclusive. Historically, Hanmi's staff has largely been Korean American. But Kim wants to ensure the bank is reflective of the customers it hopes to serve across its nine-state footprint.
"We were much smaller in the beginning so it made sense that the employee base reflected that," Kim added. "Now it is no longer like that. If you look more broadly, the first-generation Korean American population is declining. Now you have their children who are more comfortable speaking English. We must look at diversity not just in our employees but also on our board and definitely at all levels of management."
