US Senate confirms NRI lawyer- Manisha Singhon key State Dept post in charge of the country's economic diplomacy.

Washington, November 3 2017

The US Senate confirmed the appointment of Manisha Singh, apopular NRI lawyer, to a key administration position in the State Department that would make her in charge of the country's economic diplomacy.

• Manisha Singh was chief counsel and senior policy adviser to Senator Dan Sullivan
• Her nomination was confirmed by a voice vote in block along with several other diplomatic nominations.
• Rivkin resigned the position and has been vacant since January.

Donald Trump nominated Florida-based attorney Manisha Singh as assistant secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary

On September 07, 2017, President Donald J. Trump Announces Key Additions to his Administration

United States President Donald Trump has nominated Florida-based attorney Manisha Singh as assistant secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs. She will be in charge of the department upon approval by the US Senate. The position has been lying vacant since January 2017, after Charles Rivkin resigned following the swearing in of Trump as the 45th US president.
In the new position, she will be in charge of Economic Diplomacy.

• Ms. Manisha Singh was Chief Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan.
• She was a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs and has served as a senior aide to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
• Ms. Singh’s private sector experience includes practicing law at multinational law firms and working in-house at an investment bank.
• She earned an LL.M. in International Legal Studies from the American University Washington College of Law, a J.D. from the University of Florida College of Law and a B.A. from the University of Miami at the age of 19.
• Manisha also studied at the University of Leiden Law School in the Netherlands.
• She is licensed to practice law in Florida, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia and speaks fluent Hindi.

When She was in high school, her congressman at the time- had a program called the Congressional Classroom, and one high school junior from each high school in his district was selected to travel to Washington as part of this program. She was fortunate enough to be selected from her school. And that was her first exposure to Capitol Hill. She toured the Capitol and learned what members of Congress do, and ever since then she was fascinated with public policy.

She was a senior associate at the law firm, got enough exposure and experience to translate this now to the policy world. She decided to move to the Hill for exposure on the Senate side on the Foreign Relations Committee working for Sen.Lugar (R).

She supervised about 70 people within the economic bureau and handled trade, intellectual property issues, (World Trade Organization) issues. . She was a manager of foreign service, civil service personnel — all the challenges of management in a big bureaucracy

She was highly involve in trade agreements- how trade agreements could better function for American businesses, how this going to benefit U.S. companies, their ability to export and a tool for the American economic agenda.

Trump plans to nominate Indian American to top administration post

Washington, Sep 8 (IANS) US President Donald Trump has plans to nominate an Indian American woman to a key post in the State Department, putting her in a pivotal position of US economic diplomacy, a media report said.

Manisha Singh is currently the chief counsel and senior policy adviser to US Senator Dan Sullivan. If confirmed by the Senate, Singh would fill an important position of Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, after Charles Rivkin's resignation, the American Bazaar online reported on Thursday.

The position has been vacant after Rivkin resigned following the swearing in of the new US administration.

Singh is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs in the State Department and has also served as deputy chief counsel to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

She also has private sector experience multinational law firms and in an investment bank.

Singh earned an LL.M. in International Legal Studies from the American University Washington College of Law, a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Florida College of Law and a B.A. from the University of Miami at the age of 19.

She is licensed to practice law in Florida, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia and speaks fluent Hindi, according to a press release from the White House. Singh is a native of Uttar Pradesh and she moved to Florida along with her parents as a child.

Singh is also a member of the South Asian Bar Association and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.