Dr. Robert J. Shapiro -- Full Bio

Chair of the Globalization Initiative

Dr. Robert J. Shapiro is the Chair of NDN's Globalization Initiative, and has been involved in the project since its inception in early 2005. He is also the chairman and co-founder of Sonecon, LLC, a private firm that provides advice and analysis to senior executives and officials of U.S. and foreign businesses, governments, and non-profit organizations.  He is an internationally-known economist with expertise in a range of areas, including globalization, innovation, financial markets, taxation and public finance, the U.S. economy, and the economics of climate change and of telecommunications.  Dr. Shapiro has advised, among others, President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Jr., British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and U.S. Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  He has also been an advisor to private firms such as Amgen, AT&T, Cisco, Google, Gilead Sciences, NASDAQ, and Fujitsu of Japan; and to non-profit organizations including the American Public Transportation Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  Currently, he is also a Senior Policy Fellow of the Georgetown University Center for Business and Public Policy, an advisor to the International Monetary Fund, chairman of the U.S. Climate Task Force, co-chair of American Task Force Argentina, and a director of the Ax:son-Johnson Foundation in Sweden.

Before establishing Sonecon, Dr. Shapiro was Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs from 1997 to 2001.  In that position, he directed economic policy for the U.S. Commerce Department and oversaw the Nation’s major statistical agencies, including the Census Bureau during the planning and operations of the 2000 Decennial Census.  Prior to that appointment, he was co-founder and Vice President of the Progressive Policy Institute and the Progressive Foundation.  He was the principal economic advisor to Bill Clinton in his 1991-1992 campaign and a senior economic advisor to Vice President Gore and Senator John Kerry in their presidential campaigns.  In the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, he advised the campaign and transition of Barack Obama.  Dr. Shapiro also served as Legislative Director and Economic Counsel for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Associate Editor of U.S. News & World Report. He has been a Fellow of Harvard University, the Brookings Institution, and the National Bureau of Economic Research.  He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Harvard University, a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an A.B. from the University of Chicago.  Dr. Shapiro appears regularly on U.S. media and is widely published. His most recent book is Futurecast: How Superpowers, Populations and Globalization Will Change the Way You Live and Work (St. Martin’s Press, 2008).