Khin Kyi was born on 16 April 1912 in Myaungmya during the British Raj to parents Pho Hnyin and Phwa Su.

[2] As her family lived in the Irrawaddy delta, heavily populated by ethnic Karens, her father Pho Hnyin converted to Christianity (baptised in the Baptist Church) as a young man, while her mother was a staunch Buddhist.

[4] Khin Kyi first met Aung San in 1942, when he was recovering from injuries sustained during the Burma Campaign, at the Rangoon General Hospital, where she served as a senior nurse.

She served as a member of parliament in the country's first post-independence government from 1947 to 1948, representing Rangoon's Lanmadaw Township, the constituency that her husband had won.

In 1960, Khin Kyi was appointed as Burma's Ambassador to India, and became the country's first woman to serve as the head of a diplomatic mission.