Carl Walter joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) as visiting scholar with the China Program for the 2021-2022 academic year. Prior to coming to APARC, he served as independent, non-executive Director at the China Construction Bank. He was also previously a visiting scholar with APARC during the winter and spring terms of the 2012–13 academic year after a career in banking spent largely in China. 

His research interests focus on China's financial system and its impact on financial and political organizations. During his time at Shorenstein APARC Walter will continue his book project on how fiscal reforms in China have impacted the banking system, the overall economy and the prospect for financial reform going forward.

Walter has contributed articles to publications including Caijing, the Wall Street Journal and the China Quarterly. He is also the co-author of Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundations of China's Extraordinary Rise (2012) and Privatizing China: Inside China's Stock Markets (2005).

Walter lived and worked in Beijing from 1991 to 2011, first as an investment banker involved in the earliest SOE restructurings and overseas public listings, then as chief operation officer of China's first joint venture investment bank, China International Capital Corporation. Over the last ten years he was JPMorgan's China chief operating officer as well as chief executive officer of its China banking subsidiary.

Walter holds a PhD in political science from Stanford University, a certificate of advanced study from Peking University and a BA in Russian Studies from Princeton University.