International / Business
Josette S. Shiner is one of USTR’s top advisers to Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick, serving as a chief policy strategist on trade and globalization issues and overseeing numerous negotiating sectors as well as the agency’s communications and outreach operations.
With a wide-ranging background in policy, journalism and the private sector, Ms. Shiner brings a unique combination of talents to government service. Before joining USTR, she was managing director of Starpoint Solutions, a leading Wall Street technology firm that works with Fortune 500 clients. During her tenure at Starpoint she successfully competed for and led major strategic projects such as the redesign of the Associated Press’ global intranet. Prior to Starpoint, she served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Empower America, founded by Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett, where she developed its agenda of technology policy, trade, education reform and tax reform.
Ms. Shiner has a distinguished background in media. She has twice served as a Pulitzer Prize juror, including for foreign reporting. During her tenure as managing editor of The Washington Times, she was a regular commentator on programs such as Nightline, Fox news, the McLaughlin Group, the Diane Rehm Show, CNN and others.
Under her leadership, the Times rose to prominence as one of the world’s most quoted and awarded newspapers for breaking news and investigative stories. Ms. Shiner rose rapidly to the top ranks of management at the newspaper after proving her expertise as a reporter covering the White House, Congress and State Department.
Her extensive network of contacts and reputation for fairness and accuracy helped her land interviews with more than a dozen heads of state in Europe, Asia, Latin American and the United States while working at the Times.
Ms. Shiner also wrote a nationally syndicated column for Scripps Howard News Service on a wide range of issues including technology, education and other national policy issues. In 1997, Washingtonian magazine named Ms. Shiner as one of Washington’s 100 Most Powerful Women.
Ms. Shiner is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In March 2002, President George Bush appointed Ms. Shiner to the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status. She has served on a number of boards, including the Washington Urban League, and has received numerous journalistic awards including the Press Award for Journalistic Achievement by the National Order of Women Legislators and a national award for developing and promoting African-American journalists.
