This is the story of a woman who chose not to let a male-dominated industry hold her back, and after nearly 30 years of climbing ladders, was finally rewarded with a big-league job that no woman in North America has ever held. Last year, Kim Ng indeed became the first female and first Asian-American individual to hold the title of general manager with the Miami Marlins.
Ng has been in professional baseball for most of her adult life, but her interest in the sport dates back to her childhood, where she grew up playing stickball in the street. Raised in the metropolitan New York area by parents of Chinese descent, she went to high school in New Jersey, was a star shortstop on the University of Chicago’s softball team, and earned a degree in public policy in 1990.
Following graduation, Ng started as a front office intern with the Chicago White Sox. She worked her way up to managerial posts with the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers before taking on the position of senior vice president for baseball operations for Major League Baseball in 2011.
Ng made her first bit of history as the first woman and youngest person to present and win a salary arbitration case at the MLB level when she successfully represented the White Sox in 1995 and was the youngest assistant general manager in MLB when she joined the New York Yankees in 1998.
Before finally landing her position with the Miami Marlins in 2020, Ng had interviewed for an MLB general manager job more than a half-dozen times, including with the Phillies, Mets, Giants, Dodgers, Mariners, and Padres, but none of these opportunities panned out. Ng didn’t let these setbacks keep her from achieving her dream, and her determination ultimately paid off.
The day she was hired as general manager became a landmark day for women in sports. It turned into a cultural touchstone: the Marlins' Derek Jeter, the first Black man to become a chief executive officer of an MLB team, was the first to hire a woman to lead an entire baseball team's organization.
“Anybody who knows me knows that I have spent countless hours advocating for young girls, advocating for young women and really trying to help them advance their careers,” Ng said. “Now having this high-profile position, where you're out in public more ... there is an adage: ‘You can't be it, if you can't see it.’ I guess I would suggest to them, now you can see it.”