Nam Ki-ae began her acting career on stage before making her first screen appearance in the 2015 KBS2 series All About My Mom. In 2016, she became part of director Kim Hee-jung’s film Snow Paths. That same year, she portrayed mother roles in numerous TV series such as KBS2’s Descended From the Sun and tvN’s Oh Hae-young Again. In 2017, she joined the casts of the KBS2 mystery-comedy Perfect Wife and the SBS legal rom-com Suspicious Partner. In 2018, she played supporting characters in the KBS2 drama Matrimonial Chaos and in the tvN series Boyfriend. She next landed roles in the SBS sageuk Haechi and in the tvN cop comedy Catch the Ghost, which both aired in 2019. The following year, she acted alongside Lee Jun-ki and Moon Chae-won in tvN’s Flower of Evil. In 2021, she was cast in several television dramas including tvN’s Jirisan and SBS’s Now, We Are Breaking Up.

Nam Ki-ae attended Chung-Ang University.