Robert J. Shapiro

Robert J. Shapiro (born 1953) is the cofounder and chairman of Sonecon, LLC, a United States private finance consultancy that has built a reputation on a range of economic policy issues, including climate change, intellectual property, and finance. He is known for warning of the dangers of naked short selling. He has claimed that naked short selling has cost investors $100 billion and driven 1,000 companies into the ground.

He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an A.B. from the University of Chicago. He also has been a Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Brookings Institution, and Harvard University.

Previously he was undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs in the administration of President Bill Clinton, principal economic adviser to Bill Clinton during the 1992 campaign, a senior economic adviser to Al Gore and John Kerry in their campaigns, a cofounder of the Progressive Policy Institute, legislative director to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and an associate editor of U.S. News & World Report.

In his Commerce Department position, he oversaw the major statistical agencies of the United States, including the Census Bureau while it carried out the 2000 decennial census.

Shapiro currently serves as an adviser to the International Monetary Fund, the Director of the Globalization Initiative of New Democrat Network, a political organization, and Chair of the Climate Task Force. He is also the co-chairman of the American Task Force Argentina, a group formed in November 2006 to encourage the Argentine government to repay more than $20 billion in delinquent sovereign debt, a member of the advisory board of the biotech firm Gilead Sciences, a director of the Ax:son-Johnson Foundation, a senior adviser to the public affairs firm Gibraltar Associates, a fellow of the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business, and the Chairman of the Council for European Investment Security (CEIS).