His consulting experience ranges from strategic planning to foreign affairs to economic development to political strategy for the Conference Board, U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute, the Foreign Service Institute, Dean Witter Reynolds, A.G. Becker & Co., MacMillan Bloedel, Honda Motor Company, Tong Yang Securities, 13-D Research, Matterhorn Palmyra Fund, and numerous other corporations and political leaders.
In addition, with Zbigniew Brzezinksi, he founded Global Political Assessment in 1976 at Columbia University's Research Institute on International Change and edited the semi-annual periodical until 1985.
[18] Overholt's political advising has included intense involvement in Zimbabwe’s movement to independence (1979–1981), South Korean domestic conflicts in 1980, the Philippine revolution of 1986, Burma’s insurgent wars of the late 1980s, and Hong Kong’s transition.
[19] He served as head of the Asia Policy Task Force for the 39th President of the United States Jimmy Carter’s campaign[20] in 1976.
[21] Concurrently, he served as senior fellow and president of Fung Global Institute in Hong Kong from 2013 to 2015[22] and is principal of AsiaStrat LLC, a consulting firm.
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.