Jim Yong Kim will leave the World Bank at the end of January.Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty

Jim Yong Kim will resign prematurely from his post as president of the World Bank, effective 1 February.

Kim is leaving to join a private infrastructure-investment firm, according to a 7 January statement from the international development institution, based in Washington DC. He will also rejoin a non-profit medical organization that he helped to found, Partners in Health in Boston, Massachusetts.

In the past, US presidents have nominated World Bank leaders. This has led some development analysts to worry that Kim’s successor will be unlikely to support causes antithetical to the administration of President Donald Trump, such as climate change.

Kim was nominated by then-president Barack Obama in 2012 and elected as World Bank president that year. He was reappointed in 2016. His term was slated to end in 2022.