Thought Leader Profile

Gary Shapiro

President and CEO, Consumer Electronics Association

Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the US trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer electronics companies and owning and producing the world's largest annual innovation tradeshow, the International CES.

Gary led the industry in its successful transition to HDTV. He co-founded and chaired the HDTV Model Station and served as a leader of the Advanced Television Test Center (ATTC). He is a charter inductee to the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers and received its highest award as the industry leader most influential in advancing HDTV. He focused on the need for and led the effort to obtain the 2009 cutoff date of analog broadcasting.

As chairman of the Home Recording Rights Coalition (HRRC), Gary led the manufacturers' battle to preserve the legality of recording technology, consumer fair-use rights, and opposing legislation like PIPA and SOPA, harmful to a robust Internet.

Gary has held many exhibition industry leadership posts and received the exhibition industry's highest honor, the IAEE Pinnacle Award. He is a member of the board of directors of the Northern Virginia Technology Council and the Economic Club of Washington. He sits on the State Department's Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy. He has served as a member of the Commonwealth of Virginia's Commission on Information Technology and on the Board of Visitors of George Mason University. Gary also has been recognized by the US Environmental Protection Agency as a "mastermind" for his initiative in helping to create the Industry Cooperative for Ozone Layer Protection (ICOLP).

Gary leads a staff of 150 employees and thousands of industry volunteers and has testified before Congress on technology and business issues more than 20 times. In 2012, and in prior years, Washington Life magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in Washington. Under Gary's leadership, CEA also annually wins many awards as a family-friendly employer, as one of the best places to work in Virginia, and as a "green" tradeshow producer.

Gary authored CEA's New York Times bestsellers Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World's Most Successful Businesses (Harper Collins, 2013) and The Comeback: How Innovation will Restore the American Dream (Beaufort, 2011). Through these books and television appearances, and as a columnist whose writing appears in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, Gary has helped direct policymakers and business leaders on the importance of innovation in the US economy.

Prior to joining CEA, Gary was an associate at the law firm of Squire Sanders. He also has worked on Capitol Hill as an assistant to a member of Congress. He received his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate with a double major in Economics and Psychology from Binghamton University. He is married to Dr. Susan Malinowski, a retina surgeon.

Speaker at FiRe 2014


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