Patricia Pei joined the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in June 2009. She is currently the President and Founder of The American Friends of the Shanghai Museum formed in 1995. She is also a Board Member of M+ American Friends Foundation, another US-nonprofit supporting a contemporary art museum in Hong Kong. She was formerly on the Boards of the National Museum of Asian Art (2008-2016) and the China Institute (1990s).

Ms. Pei is also a collector of 18th and 19th Century European drawings and watercolors, 19th Century European oil sketches as well as Contemporary Chinese works on paper. She was a dealer in the offices of E. V. Thaw and Co., Inc., until 2018 and spent 30 years advising and helping form collections for individuals and museums.