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After graduating from college, Ab Ki-moon studied politics at Seoul National University. During this time, he visited Washington D.C. with a group of students in 1962, where he and his classmates were greeted by John F. Kennedy. In 1970 he completed his studies with a bachelor's degree in international relations. He then began a diplomatic career in 1979 in the service of the military dictatorship under Park Chung Hee before working in New Delhi in 1972. He received the Order of Service Merit from the South Korean government in 1975 and 1986. From 1980 to 1988, Ban Ki-moon worked as a diplomat under President Chun Doo-hwan, who, like his predecessor, came to power through a military coup.

In November 1980 he was appointed Director of the United Nations Division. He received his master's degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1985. In 1987 and again in 1992 he took posts at the embassy in Washington; In between, he was, among other things, Director General of the South Korean Office for American Affairs. After being with the United Nations Division, he served South Korea, which became a UN member in 1991, as First Secretary of the State's Permanent Monitoring Mission to the UN in New York. In 1992, he served as vice chairman of the South-North Joint Nuclear Control Commission. In 1995 he was proposed twice as Deputy Minister for Policy Planning and International Organizations.

In 1996 he became Secretary to the South Korean President for Foreign Affairs and State Security, and in 2000 he was promoted to Vice Foreign Minister. In 1999, as ambassador to Austria, he was elected chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO PrepCom). From February 2003, he worked as a foreign policy advisor to President Roh Moo-hyun. In 2004, he replaced Yoon Young-kwan as Foreign and Trade Minister. In September 2005, he played a key role in the so-called "Six-Party Talks" in Beijing on the nuclear crisis in North Korea surrounding President Kim Jong Il. As ambassador to Austria, he received the country's Grand Decoration of Honor in 2001. In 2002 he received the Grand Cross of Rio Branco in Brazil.

In September 2005, Ban Ki-moon was honored with the Korean Society's Van Fleet Award in New York 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.

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.

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