Shanker Singham’s career from its start in the early 1990’s has followed a pathway leading almost inexorably to the creation of the Competere Foundation, an educational organization,  whose purpose is to promulgate his ideas concerning poverty alleviation and increased prosperity through competition.

After attaining undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in chemistry at Oxford University’s Baliol College (1990), Shanker obtained his post-graduate law degree from the University of Law in Guilford, UK in 1992. He later received his US law degree at the University of Miami, School of Law.

In 1992, he embarked upon his career with the law firm CMS Cameron McKenna (UK), then McKenna & Co. This placed Shanker in the middle of some of the most profound changes in the direction of the world in modern history—the transition following the collapse of Soviet communism. He worked on various economic reforms including Russia and other former Soviet bloc countries joining the WTO, and the accession of Poland and Hungary to the EU. He was also directly involved in the privatisation of the UK’s formerly government-run electricity monopoly.

Moving to Florida in 1995, Shanker joined the law firm of Steel Hector & Davis, where he later became partner. That firm was extensively involved in Latin America, and when a new era of Latin American economic reforms became possible (the Apertura), he was again at the center, addressing competition and trade issues as well as US policy towards these nations. He built that firm’s Latin American trade practice, and later build and led the market access/WTO practice of Squire Patton Boggs (Squire Sanders) in Washington, where, as a partner, he oversaw 25 attorneys operating internationally. By the late 1990’s, Shanker was recognized as a leading international trade and competition attorney and expert.

Shanker’s expertise was highly sought, including by both elected officials and candidates for office. He advised both Democrats and Republicans, including two governors of Florida, Lawton Chiles (D) and Jeb Bush(R). Later, he served on an advisory committee for Mitt Romney in his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. While at Squire Sanders, he was also an advisor to the US Trade Representative (2009-2016), serving on an Industry Trade Advisory Committee.

Formulating Key Concepts

As Shanker’s career grew and his experience deepened, he began writing articles concerning competition, trade and property rights. His first efforts in this regard were a series of articles he wrote for the Brooklyn Law Journal in the late 1990’s, articles which are still cited today.

With the publication of his first book, A General Theory of Trade and Competition, in 2007, Shanker formulated his views concerning economic development, human progress and the alleviation of poverty through a competition-driven open market approach. Government or private interest-led interference with open market and competition-driven growth, he defined as Anti-Competitive Market Distortions (ACMDs).

Later, Shanker crystalized his concept of The Three Pillars of Economic Development. All of these ideas are extensively discussed on our Competere Foundation website.

Whatever the circumstances, wherever the venue, Shanker has used these core ideas, distilled and refined over a lifetime of experience and practice, as the foundation for his proposed solutions.

In 2010, for example, he testified before a US House of Representatives hearing on China on behalf of the US Chamber of Commerce, where he discussed possible approaches to addressing the challenges to US interests coming from China’s State-Owned Enterprises and ACMDs.

Moving to a Public Career

In 2013, with his appointment to Babson Global, an arm of Babson College in Boston, Shanker shifted from his law practice to focus more upon the means by which he could apply his solutions and approach to the development of new government policy and initiatives.

The most pressing problem he saw, and continues to see, is the urgent need to address poverty and the failure of the wealthiest countries of the world to engage poor countries into the thriving system of globalization constructed after World War II in the WTO/GATT framework of liberalised trade and competition. The causes and successes of that prosperity needed to be more clearly defined (The Three Pillar approach), applied, and extended to poor nations.

At Babson, he was Director of the Competitiveness and Enterprise Cities Project. He travelled the world promoting his vision of special economic zones as a means to create prosperity, seeing these zones bypassing the all-too-common constraints imposed by governments and private concerns, which prevent more open competition and trade by favouring corrupt entrenched business interests.

In 2015, Shanker launched his consultancy, Competere, registered both in the US and UK, where he advises both private business and government clients. At the same time, Shanker became associated with the Legatum Institute, appointed as Director of Economic Policy and Prosperity Studies. He further developed his ideas concerning competition, property rights protection, open trade and the alleviation of poverty while holding that position, writing numerous studies on those subjects.

Then came the Brexit fight.

As has been publicly reported, but often conveniently forgotten in the news media, Shanker Singham did not initially support Brexit, and indeed, he both voted against Brexit in the referendum and penned opinion pieces in opposition, prior to the vote. He believed that the Anti-Competitive Market Distortions undermining the UK’s prosperity could be resolved within the constraints of the EU.

However, when Brexit became a reality, Shanker became a major public figure defining policies to ensure Brexit’s success.

Just as he had developed special economic zones as a means for promoting his approach to economic progress and prosperity, Shanker accepted the newly adopted constraints of Britain leaving the EU and advocated his policies as the pathway for creating the maximum benefit to all under the new circumstances.

This was initially through his new position at the Legatum Institute, Chairman of the Special Trade Commission, and later, in 2018, as Director of International Trade & Competition, Institute of Economic Affairs.

From that period forward, Shanker Singham’s proposed approaches have become more influential in the formulation of government policy. He has advised the UK government on the development of freeports and has been involved in the development of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

His studies of competition, open trade and property rights led to writing a textbook, co-authored by Alden F. Abbott, entitled Trade, Competition and Domestic Regulatory Policy: Trade Liberlisation, Competitive Markets and Property Rights Protection, published in 2023.

Today, besides being CEO of Competere LLC, Shanker is a government advisor, officer or member of several trade and economic commissions, frequent news commentator, public speaker, and author.

Final Note

As quoted elsewhere on our website, Shanker believes that “Wealth can be created or destroyed, but it is very hard to create. This is why prosperity and peace are not the ordinary states that mankind has found itself in.” Creating wealth requires competition, both domestic and foreign.

And competere is Latin for competition.

The launch of the Competere Foundation, an educational organization, in collaboration with his wife Mellicent, a long-time partner in his endeavors, opens a new chapter in Shanker Singham’s lifelong commitment to alleviate poverty throughout the world.