Peter R. Barnett

Dr Peter R. Barnett is Vice President (Europe) at Gerson Lehrman Group in London. There he manages a network of legal, economic, and regulatory affairs experts, facilitating consultations between these experts and investment management professionals from the largest investment funds on Wall Street, Asia, and in Europe. Prior to joining Gerson Lehrman Group, Dr Barnett practised as a solicitor-advocate with the leading international law firm Herbert Smith in London, where he represented individuals and multi-national companies in cross-border international and commercial litigation. He is a graduate, in Arts and Law, of the University of Sydney; and, as a Rhodes Scholar, read law at the University of Oxford, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) and a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil). He is the author of a practitioner text on aspects of international law and litigation, which was published by Oxford University Press in March 2001.

Dr Barnett serves as a Director and Trustee of Starfish, a registered charity which he co-founded with friends in 2001 to help children orphaned or affected by HIV/Aids in Africa. Starfish now operates in five countries and cares for over 20,000 orphaned children. Dr Barnett is also on the governing committee of The Trinity Forum in Europe, a leadership academy-without-walls that operates in North America and Europe.

Peter is married to Julie, an English teacher at Lord Williams’s School, and they have two children: Joseph and Grace. They live in Thame, Oxfordshire, England—a long way from the farm in outback Australia where he was born. They enjoy reading, walking, music, and theatre—and Peter occasionally sings, having once trained as a tenor with acclaimed Royal Opera baritone, Robert Bickerstaff.