HE HAS HELD an impressive portfolio of top jobs spanning two continents and several education sectors.
But the man parachuted in to bring Hong Kong's secondary school exam system into the 21st century knows how damaging the word 'failed' can be for a student.
Growing up in 1950s England Peter Hill failed the crucial 11-plus exam that was the passport to elite grammar school education and academic success. Instead, he found himself in a more vocational 'secondary modern', where most students quit education at the age of 15 with no academic qualifications at all.
But Mr Hill benefited from the unusually enlightened leadership of his new head, who hand-picked 12 of his best students to take the academic O-levels. He got the best grades in the group - and never looked back. A-levels followed, then teacher training. At 24, he went to teach in Australia, where he gained a PhD and rose to become chief of the state of Victoria's curriculum and assessment board and then of its department of school education.
A string of top academic jobs followed at the University of Melbourne before an extraordinary leap into the heights of US education policy, as director of research and development at the National Centre on Education and the Economy in Washington.
But throughout his parabolic career, Mr Hill has never lost touch with the powerful lesson of his own school days.