In 2020, Kim Ng broke through one of the most well-tempered glass ceilings in professional sports. After a 30-year-long career in baseball, she was named general manager of the Miami Marlins—becoming not only the first female GM of a Major League Baseball franchise, but the first female GM of any major North American men’s professional sports team.
For Kim, there was no single defining moment along her game-changing path. The historic milestones she’s reached have been decades in the making and started with a childhood love of sports. She grew up in Queens, one of five sisters who all played softball from a very early age. “It runs in the family, for sure,” she says.
How Kim Handles Tough Conversations: "You just always need to act with honesty and integrity."
Kim remembers playing in her first organized softball league after her family moved to Long Island when she was 12 years old, though tennis was actually her first sport. Both tennis and softball gave her the instinct to compete and the resolve to keep showing up.
She’d go on to play intercollegiate softball at the University of Chicago. Even then, sports planted early lessons that would define her leadership—lessons about empathy, grit, intuition.
“I wasn’t always the smartest one on the field, but I could probably make an argument that I might have been the fiercest one, or the one who had the most heart,” she says. “I felt like I was on a mission every single day to prove myself.”
Kim began her professional path in baseball as an intern with the Chicago White Sox. That opportunity turned into six years in a full-time role, laying the foundation for a steady rise through the sport’s leadership ranks. She went on to serve as assistant general manager for both the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers before taking on the job of senior vice president of baseball operations at the MLB league office.
By the time she took the reins as GM in Miami, Kim had become one of the most esteemed leaders in baseball, and her style is one that colleagues grew to both respect and rely on. “I listen,” she says. “I think I have a reputation as being a straight shooter, and that’s a big part of my leadership style. Number one, having compassion. But number two, being able to have honest conversations.”
That delicate balance—between empathy and candor—became the foundation of her approach. Players trusted her and fellow executives respected her. She built influence not by being the loudest voice in the room but by being the most clear and consistent. In Miami, her leadership translated into results. Under her guidance, the Marlins posted the fourth-best winning percentage in franchise history in 2023 and secured their first full-season postseason berth in 20 years.
After the 2023 season, Kim’s tenure with the Marlins came to an end. She declined to continue with the team after the organization decided to hire a president of baseball operations to serve over her—even though she’d constructed a playoff team.
Her next chapter would involve a return to softball, after reconnecting with former colleague Jon Patricof, cofounder of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL). At the time, he and his business partner Jonathan Soros were in the process of launching a type of women’s professional softball league that had never been seen before in the U.S., with financial backing from the MLB and a unique format.
“I kid Jon about this all the time,” Kim says. “I was not looking for a full-time job.” She was instead looking for her next “passion project”—but he sold her on the idea that the AUSL could be both. At the time, Athletes Unlimited was four years into its journey of investing in and innovating women’s sports through athlete-focused leagues. Kim was convinced and was inspired to help grow the sport she’d played for so long; she leaned into the opportunity to serve as commissioner of the AUSL.
“For this to come full circle, I’m just so happy that I can get back to the sport,” she says. She believes the stars are aligned for softball to have its big moment. “All of the ingredients are there for us again to be catapulted further into a successful sphere.”
This isn’t just hyperbole. The NCAA’s Women’s College World Series has become one of the most electric events in all of college athletics, with sellout crowds and record television audiences. The 2025 event saw an average viewership of 1.3 million, outperforming the 2025 Men’s College World Series. Kim felt that electricity the first time she experienced the series. “It was one of those incredibly magical moments,” she says, recalling the unmistakable blend of competition, community, and joy that defines women’s softball at its best.
Softball’s undeniable momentum has also caught the attention of the MLB, which last year made a reported eight-figure investment in the AUSL, and the International Olympic Committee, which approved the inclusion of softball in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Now, with the establishment of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, the pathway for softball in the U.S. seems clear—from youth participation to college stardom to a professional platform with long-term viability. “This is what women deserve,” Kim says.
For her, being a game changer was never about making headlines. “To me, it means having influence, not being bound by convention, and having a vision,” she says. “I felt like I had a vision, I had a voice, and I had the fortitude.” Her fortitude carried her into rooms where she was often the only woman. It carried her to the top echelons of Major League Baseball, and now she carries it with her as she works to change softball for the next generation of women in the sport.
If Kim’s career has proven anything, it’s that true game changers don’t just make history; they create new pathways for others to follow.
The types of individuals Kim wants on her team, any team: “The people who act with selflessness. Those are the people that are going to have your back and do things for the right reason.”
Photographed at MLB Network’s Studio 42.
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