Select a name from the alphabetical listing drop down menu to view a photo and biography of confirmed speakers for the 2009 URW Symposium.

URW 2009 Speakers
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  William Overholt
  Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
 

Dr. William H. Overholt holds a research position at Harvard’s Kennedy School and is Principal of AsiaStat LLC, a consulting firm. Previously, he held the Asia Policy Distinguished Research Chair at RAND’s California headquarters and was Director of that Center. Concurrently, he is Visiting Professor at Shanghai Jiaotung University.

In 2002, Dr. Overholt was Joint Senior Fellow at Harvard University and also Distinguished Visiting Professor at Yonsei University in South Korea.

During his 21 years in investment banking, he served as Head of Strategy and Economics at Nomura’s regional headquarters in Hong Kong from 1998-2001 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 in 1980-84 then was Regional Strategist and Asia Research Head based in Hong Kong in 1985-98.

At Hudson Institute 1971-79, 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 conducted strategic planning for corporations.

Dr. Overholt is the author of six books, including Asia, America and the Transformation of Geopolitics (Cambridge University Press and RAND, 2007); The Rise of China (W.W. Norton, 1993), which won the Mainichi News/Asian Affairs Research Center Special Book Prize; 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, the US-China Institute of the University of Southern California, the Asia Society of Southern California, 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 other corporations. He has served as a 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 received his B.A. (magna, 1968) from Harvard and his Master of Philosophy (1970) and Ph.D. (1972) from Yale.