Asia Society Southern California
China Economy: Macro Trends and
Business Strategies

Speakers Bio

William Overholt
Sr. Research Fellow, Kennedy School, Harvard University
Cambridge, MA

William H. Overholt is a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. He formerly held the Asia Policy Research Chair at RAND's Center for Asia Pacific Policy and was Director of the Center. Dr. Overholt was Joint Senior Fellow at Harvard University. He was also Distinguished Visiting Professor at Yonsei University in South Korea for 2003-2005. Previously he served as Head of Strategy and Economics at Nomura's regional headquarters in Hong Kong from 1998 to 2001, and as Managing Director and Head of Research at Bank Boston's regional headquarters in Singapore. During 18 years at Bankers Trust, he ran a country risk team in New York from 1980 to 1984, then was regional strategist and Asia research head based in Hong Kong.

At Hudson Institute 1971 to 1979, Dr. Overholt directed planning studies for the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of State, National Security Council, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Council on International Economic Policy. As Director of Hudson Research Services, he did strategic planning for corporations.
Dr. Overholt was a Governor of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and Executive Committee member of the Business and Professionals Federation of Hong Kong, both for six years. He serves on advisory boards for Harvard University's Asia Center; the Hang Lung Center for Organizational Research at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; and Chinavest Ltd.

He has been a consultant on strategic planning and foreign affairs to the Conference Board, the U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute, the Foreign Service Institute, Dean Witter Reynolds, A.G. Becker, and numerous corporations. He has served as political advisor to several of Asia's major political figures and has done consulting projects for the Korea Development Institute, Korea's National Defense College, the Philippine Ministry of Agrarian Reform, and Thailand's Ministry of Universities.

Dr. Overholt is the author of the America and Asia: The Coming Transformation of Asian Geopolitics (RAND, 2007), as well as The Rise of China (W.W. Norton, 1993), which won the Mainichi News/Asian Affairs Research Center Special Book Prize. He has also written or co-written, Political Risk (Euromoney, 1982), Strategic Planning and Forecasting, with William Ascher (John Wiley, 1983), and Asia's Nuclear Future (Westview Press, 1976). In 1976 he founded the semi-annual Global Assessment, with Zbigniew Brzezinski, and edited it until 1988.

Dr. Overholt received his B.A. (magna, 1968) from Harvard and his Master of Philosophy (1970) and Ph.D. (1972) from Yale.

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