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, Manuel will examine whether global collaboration, which once fueled innovation, can endure in the new era of tech geopolitics.

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 from the Phase I trade agreement to the Covid-crisis 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.

From her front row seat as advisor to U.S. CEOs, Anja Manuel untangles the implications of the coronavirus pandemic 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 the coronavirus crisis has been along nation-state lines in ways that may splinter regulatory regimes;
• the pandemic’s impact on emerging markets, which are only beginning to be felt; to
• 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.

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.

In the next decade and a half, Asia will surpass the combined strength of North America and Europe in economic might, population size and military spending.

From her front-row view of this colossal shift, first at the State Department and now as an advisor to American CEOs, Anja Manuel escorts the audience on an intimate tour of the corridors of power of Asia’s predominant powers—China and India—to reveal what makes each country “tick” and what Americans doing business there should know. Through vibrant stories that have been described as “both heartbreaking and funny,” she reveals how each country is working to surmount enormous challenges—from the crushing poverty of Indian slum dwellers and Chinese factory workers, to outrageous corruption scandals, rotting rivers and unbreathable air, to managing their citizens’ discontent, and how some of these challenges create opportunities for joint work with American companies.

Based on her book This Brave New World, Manuel shows us an optimistic path—American politicians, businesses and ordinary citizens can bring China and India along as partners rather than alienating one or both, and thus extend our own leadership in the world.