Meet the Bank of America VP who moonlights as a filmmaker, actor and advocate

Jinna Kim isn’t afraid to fail. That may be why she’s so successful.

An interdisciplinary artist, her work is popping up everywhere from TV shows and commercials to museums, magazines and film festivals. She’s an actor, a model, a photographer, a writer and a filmmaker.

Then there’s her day job at Bank of America, where she was recently promoted to senior vice president. She works with the Enterprise Payments team, which is responsible for implementing payment initiatives across the organization.

Outside of her regular duties, Kim is among the most prolific new inventors at the bank.

To date, she has co-filed 17 patent applications for things like frictionless banking and cognitive automation, focused on making customers’ interactions more pleasant. Fourteen of her applications were filed in 2020, part of a record 722 patent applications the bank filed last year. Kim already has been granted two patents.

While the arts and banking sound like two very different worlds to navigate, Kim’s approach remains consistent. She aims to lean in with creativity, innovation and determination.

“It’s always been very fluid for me both in corporate America and as an artist because I’ll just try it,” she said.

How she got her start

Kim’s career began in arts administration, working for two prominent New York City institutions: The Public Theater and the Museum of Modern Art. She spent her days and evenings immersed in the arts. But after six years, that specialization lost its allure.

“When I really knew it was time to do something different was when I started declining free tickets to Broadway shows,” said Kim, who left New York to pursue an MBA in general management at the University of Virginia.

It took moving to Charlotte as an intern and jumping into the corporate world for Kim to find her voice as an artist.

Right away, she loved the accessibility of Charlotte’s arts scene. Living uptown, she could easily walk from one museum to another.

“That really influenced my decision to move to Charlotte permanently,” Kim said.

Walking to and from work, she noticed something else: yellow signs with the words “TO SET” written on them.

She soon learned the TV series “Homeland” filmed in Charlotte, and anyone could apply to become an extra. She made her acting debut in the show’s Season 2 finale, first playing a dead body and then a wounded person.

“When I was dead, I was actually completely under a sheet, so you couldn’t even tell I was female or Asian,” said Kim, who is Korean-American. She laughed, recalling how she was indistinguishable from the Black man and the middle aged blonde woman on either side of her.

These days, you’re much more likely to recognize her on screen.

Kim said she has been cast in more than 100 productions, including principal roles, in everything from local public service announcements on wearing masks to national ads for Walmart and Madison Reed hair color.

Making her first film

Last year, Kim became a filmmaker.

Her short documentary, “Chinese Girl Wants Vote,” is based on the writings of Chinese-American suffragist Mabel Lee, who was the first Chinese woman to earn a doctorate in economics from Columbia University.

The film played at several film festivals around the country. It also was included last year in an exhibit at the Levine Museum of the New South and is now part of the Digital Public Library of America.

In the film, women and girls of diverse backgrounds and ages deliver Lee’s words on citizenship and the rights of women.

It began as a theatrical project back in 2019.

Kim had responded to an online call from a North Carolina theater for an Asian-American writer/actress to develop a section on Lee as part of a broader piece on notable suffragists for the centennial celebration of women getting the right to vote. A scheduling conflict prevented her from performing as planned, but she copyrighted her adaptation and kept working on it.

She wasn’t sure where it was going to go.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, and Kim started reflecting on the importance of sharing Lee’s story, especially amid news reports on voter suppression issues and growing anti-Asian sentiment.

The film explores a lesser known aspect of women’s suffrage.

Despite her activism, Lee could not benefit from the 19th amendment. The Chinese Exclusion Act, a federal law first enacted in 1882, prevented her and other Chinese-Americans from becoming citizens and voting until 1943.

Kim, who immigrated to the U.S. from South Korea at age 3 and was naturalized at age 20, realized if she didn’t step up to make her film, no one else was going to do it.

Upon its completion, she reached out to organizations like the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library to propose programming and Digital North Carolina to ensure Lee’s story would be available to the public and as part of an ongoing conversation on voting rights.

“The difference between, I think, me and other people is, I’m not afraid of rejection,” Kim said. “And if I think an idea is good, I don’t want to let it go to waste.”

Reflecting on representation

Kim said she has become increasingly aware of a lack of representation and content reflecting Asian-American experiences. Her response to the situation comes through in various ways.

It can be subtle, like her award-winning food photography of typical Korean dishes, or more explicit like her film loop ”On-screen Representation Matters” on view at The Light Factory.

Her one-act play, “A Turkey is NOT a Rooster,” part of the 2021 Asheville Fringe Arts Festival, uses parody to illustrate the harm of “anti-avian” sentiment.

Collaboration and creative risk-taking

Both in the arts and at the bank, Kim said collaboration is essential.

Working with teammates across different fields with various backgrounds, ages and experiences brings a “diversity of thought” that leads to new ideas. As an inventor, she said she is continuously looking for ways to improve the end user experience for the bank’s customers.

“You don’t have to be an artist to try to problem solve or make a decision. But while you’re at it, why can’t you make it interesting or better or fun or delightful?” Kim said.

Part of being a creative person is recognizing that feedback from others is a gift, she said. Some people think success happens overnight, but that’s generally not the case.

“I’ve been rejected thousands of times, so I stopped counting,” Kim said. “I don’t think about the odds. Every day has new opportunities.”

This story is part of an Observer underwriting project with the Thrive Campaign for the Arts, supporting arts journalism in Charlotte.

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This story was originally published April 6, 2021 at 1:18 PM.