Manisha Singh

Manisha is an experienced leader in business, commerce and technology. She currently serves as the Senior Fellow for Artificial Intelligence and National Security at the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University. She is the Founder and Principal of Sunstone Strategy Group, a business advisory firm.

She serves on the board of directors for Helix Decision Science, an artificial intelligence company. She is also on the board of trustees of the University of Florida Levin College of Law and the advisory boards for the American Foreign Policy Council and the Meridian International Center.

She most recently served at the U.S. State Department as the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs. She was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the first woman in history to lead the bureau, managing a team of 225 people in Washington with the support of 3,000 economic officers posted around the world. She was the Department’s key liaison to the business community and the lead official on digital policy, cyber economy, intellectual property, sanctions and finance. While Assistant Secretary, she served for a period concurrently as Acting Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment and the Foreign Affairs Sous Sherpa for the G-7.

​She developed a series of Innovation Roundtables on the impacts of emerging technology. Themes of the roundtables included 5G, artificial intelligence, blockchain, digital currency, smart cities, autonomous vehicles and Internet of Things. She has traveled extensively in every geographic region and successfully negotiated treaties and agreements. Manisha developed a signature initiative, Providing Opportunities for Women’s Economic Rise (POWER), a results-oriented platform to promote women in entrepreneurship.

Her prior experience in the executive branch was serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs at the State Department. She began her public service roles on Capitol Hill. She served as Deputy Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

In addition to her public sector work, her private sector experience includes serving as a senior executive at J.P. Morgan Chase. She is an attorney and previously practiced corporate law at Reed Smith and Squire Sanders & Dempsey. She has a B.A. from the University of Miami and a J.D. from the University of Florida College of Law. She also studied at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands and has an LL.M. in international legal studies from the American University Washington College of Law.