Anja Manuel

Drawing on her extensive experience in both the public and private sectors, Anja Manuel will delve into the intensifying competition between the US and China for leadership in critical technologies such as AI, semiconductors, quantum computing, and biotech. She will explore where each country currently stands in these races, highlighting key areas of contention, as well as their respective strengths and vulnerabilities.

As strategic rivalries deepen, trade and technology have become pivotal battlegrounds in a world that is increasingly fragmented. National security concerns, labor issues, and diverging governance models are driving a wave of techno-economic decoupling. In this context, Anja will examine whether global collaboration, which once fueled innovation, can endure in the new era of tech geopolitics.

From her front row seat as advisor to U.S. CEOs, Anja Manuel untangles the implications of recent events over the longer term for the world political system and economy, and the specific impact this may have on your business. She breaks down the avalanche of recent news into understandable realities. For example,

• the impact on U.S.-China relations and the consequences for US businesses who invest there or whose supply chains run through Asia;
• the cracks in the European Union, where reaction to recent events has been along nation-state lines in ways that may splinter regulatory regimes;
• the future effectiveness international institutions;

Manuel draws on her first-hand expertise in every region of the world to provide answers at this uncertain time.

In this charged political environment, Anja Manuel is able to cut through the rhetoric to offer an informed analysis of how the complex relationship between the U.S. and China may play out, and how the enmity between these giants could impact your industry specifically.

As China becomes a technology superpower, Ms. Manuel unpacks what policies are contributing to China’s technological rise, whether and how worried western companies should be, how Western governments are reacting, and how recent developments, such as the Phase I trade agreement, are likely to affect future collaboration between the West and China.

She explains, in simple and lucid terms, illustrated with up to date vignettes, how this great technological race is likely to affect your business.

China systematically extracts the most advanced technology from the West. It does so legally, by mining open source databases, investing in our most advanced companies, and illegally, through cybertheft and spying. How we choose to react will define our future and that of the world.  Instead of closing our own system, we can and must compete, and in some cases, even cooperate. We need a new era of public-private collaboration that unites American society and our allies behind a common goal of global technological progress. This talk will show us how.

Anja Manuel cuts through the rhetoric to offer an informed analysis of how President Trump’s policies might affect the United States’ relationships with foreign allies and enemies alike. Drawing on years of experience working at the State Department and as an international business consultant with the esteemed firm of RiceHadleyGates, LLC, Anja breaks down the sometimes inflammatory foreign policy and trade pronouncements into thoughtful and understandable realities. Her expertise spans the breadth of the regions what they mean for US foreign policy—from the likely direction of US trade policy, to relations China and India, to what the instability of the Middle East and Russia’s assertive policies might mean for the US businesses in the near term. Anja’s rational and measured approach to the issues has established her as an informed resource for audiences around the world.

As an investment banker, lawyer, government official and now business owner in Silicon Valley, Anja Manuel has experienced firsthand both the challenges and inspiring change afoot globally for women. Drawing on global examples as well as her own decisions and sometimes funny mistakes, she shares her perspectives on women in the seat of power, and adds common-sense solutions to empower women around the world to reach their full potential.

Every day, American businesses must decide where in the world to sell, invest or source parts of their supply chain. How do you determine which emerging markets to enter first? And how do you do it both effectively and ethically? Based on her extensive experience in government and now leading businesses through these difficult decisions, Anja Manuel shares her insight and illuminating stories about how to engage local governments and business partners from Bogota to Bangalore.