Peter B. Walker

Mr. Peter Walker is Senior Partner Emeritus of McKinsey & Company, Inc., and an advisor, speaker, and author on U.S-China relations. During his 46 years with McKinsey, he was a member of McKinsey’s Shareholders Committee for 15 years, served as the leader of McKinsey’s worldwide insurance practice, and led the New York office complex. For the last 12 years of his career at McKinsey, Mr. Walker served financial institutions across Asia with a particular focus on insurance companies in China.

During this period of work with McKinsey, Peter visited China over 80 times meeting with business leaders, government officials, experts and everyday people and became increasingly aware of the disconnect between his first-hand experience in China and the often negative portrayal in the West.

Beyond his extensive professional experience, Mr. Walker has dedicated over 15 years to studying Chinese history and culture. This combined perspective gives him an uncommon ability to understand what drives Chinese thinking, behavior, reactions, and decisions and how these can come into conflict with those of the US. His holistic approach allows him to take complex situations and boil them down to understandable and predicable realities.

Peter speaks often on US-China relations. Some of his recent venues include the SupChina’s forum, the Wharton China Summit, the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, Harvard University, the Union Club, and the Peking University Alumni Association of New York.

Mr. Walker has recently authored Powerful, Different, Equal: Overcoming the Misconceptions and Differences Between China and the US (LID publishing, 2019) to dispel many of the misperceptions about China and the United States. The book is available in Europe and the United Sates.

Peter Walker presently resides in the metro New York area with his wife.