William H. Overholt

Advisory Board Member


William H. Overholt holds the Asia Policy Research Chair at RAND’s California headquarters and is Director of the Center.

Previously Dr. Overholt was Joint Senior Fellow at Harvard University.  He was also Distinguished Visiting Professor at Yonsei University in South Korea for 2003-‘05.  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 from 1985 to 1998. 

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 is the author of six books, including Asia, America and the Transformation of Geopolitics (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008).  His previous book, The Rise of China (W.W. Norton, 1993), won the Mainichi News/Asian Affairs Research Center Special Book Prize.  The others are:  Political Risk (Euromoney, 1982); and (with William Ascher) Strategic Planning and Forecasting  (John Wiley, 1983).  He is principal co-author of: Asia's Nuclear Future (Westview Press, 1976) and The Future of  Brazil   (Westview Press, 1978). With Zbigniew Brzezinski, he founded the semi-annual Global Assessment in 1976 and edited it until 1988.

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 has served on advisory boards for Harvard University’s Asia Center; E-Tech Securities; the Hang Lung Center for Chinese Management 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.