Shannon K. O'Neil Keynote Speaker

Senior vice president, director of studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg chair at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
Author, "The Globalization Myth: Why Regions Matter"
Member of the board of directors of the Tinker Foundation

Shannon K. O'Neil's Biography

Shannon K. O’Neil is the senior vice president, director of studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg chair at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she oversees the work of the more than six dozen fellows in the David Rockefeller Studies Program as well as CFR’s fourteen fellowship programs. She is a leading authority on global trade, supply chains, Mexico, and Latin America.

Dr. O’Neil is the author of The Globalization Myth: Why Regions Matter (Yale University Press, 2022), which chronicles the rise of three main global manufacturing and supply chain hubs and what they mean for U.S. economic competitiveness. She also wrote Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead (Oxford University Press, 2013), which analyzes the political, economic, and social transformations Mexico has undergone over the last three decades and why they matter for the United States. She is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and a frequent guest on national broadcast news and radio programs. Dr. O’Neil has often testified before Congress, and regularly speaks at global academic, business, and policy conferences.

Dr. O’Neil has lived and worked in Mexico and Argentina. She was a Fulbright scholar and a Justice, Welfare, and Economics fellow at Harvard University, and has taught at Harvard and Columbia Universities. Before turning to policy, Dr. O’Neil worked in the private sector as an equity analyst at Indosuez Capital and Credit Lyonnais Securities. She holds a BA from Yale University, an MA in international relations from Yale University, and a PhD in government from Harvard University. She is a member of the board of directors of the Tinker Foundation.

The Globalization Myth: Why Regions Matter

A case for why regionalization, not globalization, has been the biggest economic trend of the past forty years.

The conventional wisdom about globalization is wrong. Over the past forty years as companies, money, ideas, and people went abroad, they increasingly looked regionally rather than globally.
O’Neil details this transformation and the rise of three major regional hubs in Asia, Europe, and North America.
Current technological, demographic, and geopolitical trends look only to deepen these regional ties.
O’Neil argues that this has urgent implications for the United States. Regionalization has enhanced economic competitiveness and prosperity in Europe and Asia.
It could do the same for the United States, if only it would embrace its neighbors.

Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead

Without a doubt, the drug war is real. But there is far more to Mexico's story than the narcos’ gruesome narrative would suggest.

While thugs grabbed headlines, Mexico experienced an unprecedented and under-publicized political, economic, and social transformation.
Two Nations Indivisible argues the United States is making a grave mistake by focusing on the politics of antagonism toward Mexico—and should instead recognize the revolution of prosperity now unfolding there.
During the early 2000s, Mexico became a real democracy, giving citizens a greater voice and opportunities to succeed at home.
With rising education levels and economic mobility, men and women built the largest and most stable middle class in Mexico’s history.
This is the Mexico Americans need to understand: a nation increasingly indivisible from the United States, and essential to our shared future.

She sits at the heart of global policy debate at the Council on Foreign Relations, leading research and convening across trade, economics and geopolitics.
She provides board-level clarity on global trade, supply chains and regionalisation, helping leaders understand how shifting production hubs affect competitiveness and risk.
She brings deep on-the-ground expertise in Mexico and Latin America, informed by lived experience and two landmark books on the region’s economic and political transformation.
She connects policy and markets, drawing on private sector experience as an equity analyst to translate macro shifts into actionable implications for strategy and investment.
She is a seasoned public commentator and trusted adviser, regularly briefing senior audiences through Bloomberg Opinion, broadcast media, and testimony before the U.S. Congress.