Gary Shapiro

Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, which represents more than 2,400 tech companies and owns and produces CES. Shapiro authored of the New York Times best-selling book s Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World’s Most Successful Businesses and The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream. Through these books, media interviews, and hundreds of opinion pieces in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post, Shapiro explains the economic importance of innovation. He is considered an “influencer” on LinkedIn, and is a highly-sought after speaker, having taken the stage at conferences including DLD, Milken, The Next Weband SXSW.

Education and early career

Shapiro holds a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center. He is also a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the Binghamton University, where he majored in economics and psychology.

Prior to joining CTA in 1982, Shapiro was an associate at the law firm of Squire, Sanders and Dempsey. He also worked as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill.

Consumer Technology Association

Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) – formerly the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) – the trade association representing the $287 billion U.S. consumer technology industry. CTA has more than 2,200 member companies – 80 percent of which are small businesses and startups, others are among the world’s best known brands. CTA membership benefits include policy advocacy, market research, training, industry promotion, standards development and the fostering of business and strategic relationships.

Under Shapiro’s leadership, CTA regularly wins awards for its success as a family friendly employer, the healthiest workplace of its size in Washington, and as a “green” tradeshow producer. In 2015, CTA earned its second consecutive selection as a Washington Post Top Workplace.

Gary Shapiro with CTA's 2016 Digital Patriots Sen. Corey Booker and Rep. Blake Farenthold, in Washington, DC.

CES

The Consumer Technology Association owns and produces CES – the world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technology. CTA also co-hosts several smaller events around the world throughout the year. CES is a major technology-related trade show held each January in the Las Vegas Convention Center and several other Las Vegas venues. CES has served as the proving ground for innovators and breakthrough technologies since 1967—the global stage where next-generation innovations are introduced to the marketplace. As the largest hands-on event of its kind, CES features all aspects of the industry. Not open to the public, the CTA-sponsored show typically hosts previews of products and new product announcements.

CES Asia

Launched in 2015, CES Asiaserves as the premier event for the consumer technology industry, showcasing the full breadth and depth of innovation in the Asian marketplace. Located in Shanghai, China, key global businesses are participating in this inaugural event to grow and reinforce their brands by showcasing the latest products and technologies to consumer technology industry executives, international buyers, media and a limited number of consumers from China.

Attendees have exclusive access to some of the largest brands from China and around the world, while celebrating the innovation that defines the consumer technology industry. CES Asia will also feature companies currently doing business in China who want to expand and enhance their business presence in China and across Asia.

High-definition television standards

Shapiro has been an active leader in the development and launch of HDTV. He helped found and chaired the HDTV Model Station, and has served on the board of the Advanced Television Test Center.

Home Recording Rights Coalition (HRRC)

Shapiro is chairman of the Home Recording Rights Coalition. The HRRC is a nonprofit advocacy organization in the United States whose mission is to protect the right of consumers to view, listen to and record radio and television broadcasts. Founded in 1981 in response to the Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. case, the group more recently has urged the U.S. Congress and Federal Communications Commission to prevent for-profit corporations and their trade organizations (like the Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America) from eroding or even destroying the private, in-home "fair use" recording of new digital audio and video technologies.

While Shapiro was at Georgetown, J. Edward Day, a senior partner at Squire, began to mentor Shapiro. He instructed Shapiro to begin monitoring developments in the Sony case. The case was filed to prevent Sony and retailers from making and selling video cassette recorders. Movie studios claimed the exclusive right to copy their works and said Sony was contributing to copyright infringement by allowing consumers to record broadcast television using VCRs. In 1979, a federal district court rejected the movie industry's claims. This decision was appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that the VCR was an illegal product. Sony and the other defendants appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

The decision by the Ninth Circuit against Sony spurred a group of retailers, consumer groups and manufacturers, such as 3M, General Electric and RCA, to start weekly meetings in order to coordinate their fight against the verdict. These meetings quickly resulted in the creation of the HRRC. As chairman of the coalition, Shapiro has testified before Congress and has helped ensure the growth of the video rental market, VCRs, home computers, and audio-recording equipment, including MP3 technology.

Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World’s Most Successful Businesses

Shapiro is the author of the New York Times best-seller Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World’s Most Successful Businesses. Drawn from Shapiro's three decades of experience leading the consumer electronics industry, Ninja Innovation takes readers behind the scenes of today's top enterprises, uncovering their ten essential strategies for success.

Shapiro has observed the world's most innovative businesses from his front-row seat as leader of the Consumer Technology Association and its influential annual trade show, CES.

Ninja Innovation offers readers a proven plan for success. From defining one’s initial goals to building an army of “ninja” collaborators, Ninja Innovation shows readers how people and companies get on top, stay on top and change the world. For example, Shapiro analyzes:

• eBay’s rise from a small start-up to a billion-dollar business;
• IBM’s uncanny ability to beat the competition consistently for decades on end;
• Jeff Bezos’s use of “ninja skills” to make Amazon one of the most innovative and dynamic companies in the world; and
• Alan Mulally’s leadership in saving the struggling Ford Motor Company and turning it into an innovative machine – without taking a government bailout.

Ninja Innovation was published in January 2013 by Harper Collins and was launched in conjunction with the opening of the 2013 International CES.

The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream

Shapiro is also the author of the book, The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream, published in January 2011. The book's foreword was written by Mark Cuban. In this book, Shapiro argues that technological innovation, when supported by a policy environment that enables entrepreneurship and technology-led change, can improve the economic situation of the United States.

More specifically, Shapiro argues for:

• "Reforming immigration laws to ensure the world's best and brightest come to and stay in America." "Opening American products to world markets by finalizing, expanding, and creating free-trade agreements."
• "Releasing more spectrum for wireless broadband."
• "Reducing litigation, encouraging investment rather than debt, improving educa-tion and supporting America's best companies."
• "Drastically reducing the deficit through triage, smarter tax collection, and economic growth."

The Comeback was published by Beaufort Books and is available as an audio book. Shapiro also authored Ninja Innovation: The Killer Strategies of Successful Businesses, which was released in 2013 by Harper Collins.

In 2015, The Hill named Shapiro “one of the most influential lobbyists” in Washington, D.C. Also, in 2015, Shapiro was named one of DC Inno's 50 on Fire of DC Government and Advocacy. Shapiro has also been repeatedly named one of the 100 most influential people in Washington by Washington Life magazine and a Tech Titan by Washingtonian magazine. He was inducted into the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers and in 2003 received its highest award as the industry leader most influential in advancing HDTV. He has also held many exhibition industry leadership posts and received the exhibition industry’s highest honor, the IAEE Pinnacle Award. In 2004, the Anti-Defamation League honored Shapiro with its American Heritage Award at its annual dinner in recognition of his "long commitment to the humanitarian goals of civil rights and justice."

Shapiro sits on the State Department's Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy and the American Enterprise Institute Global Internet Strategy Advisory Board. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Northern Virginia Technology Council, the Economic Club of Washington, the Commonwealth of Virginia's Commission on Information Technology, and on the Board of Visitors of George Mason University. He has also been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a “mastermind” for his initiative in helping to create the Industry Cooperative for Ozone Layer Protection (ICOLP).

Shapiro divorced and later remarried. He has two sons with his second wife, Dr. Susan Malinowski, and two sons from a previous marriage. Shapiro did not expect Malinowski's first pregnancy and described his young son as a "miracle child."