Sheryl WuDunn (born November 16, 1959) is an American business executive, writer, lecturer, and Pulitzer Prize winner.
A senior banker focusing on growth companies in technology, new media and the emerging markets, WuDunn also works with double bottom line firms, alternative energy issues, and women entrepreneurs. She has also been a private wealth adviser with Goldman Sachs and was previously a journalist and business executive for ''The New York Times.'' She is now senior managing director at Mid-Market Securities, a boutique investment banking firm in New York serving small and medium companies.
At the ''Times'', WuDunn ran coverage of global energy, global markets, foreign technology and foreign industry. She oversaw international business topics ranging from China's economic growth to technology in Japan, from oil and gas in Russia to alternative energy in Brazil. She was also anchor of ''The New York Times Page One,'' a nightly program of the next day's stories in the ''Times''. She also worked in the Times's Strategic Planning Department and in the Circulation Department, where she ran the effort to build the next generation of readers for the newspaper. She was one of the few people at the ''Times'' who went back and forth between the news and business sides of the organization.
She was the first Asian-American reporter hired at the ''Times'' and was a foreign correspondent in ''The New York Times'' Beijing and Tokyo bureaus. While in Tokyo, WuDunn and husband Nicholas Kristof's news coverage and editorial policies were criticized by some Japanese academics as being prone to exoticism and insulting stereotypes. She speaks Chinese language, Chinese and some Japanese language, Japanese. While in Asia, she also reported from other areas, including North Korea, Australia, Burma and the Philippines. WuDunn, recipient of honorary doctorates from University of Pennsylvania and Middlebury College, was a senior lecturer at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs in the fall of 2011. She is a commentator on China and global affairs on television and radio shows, including Bloomberg TV, NPR, ''The Colbert Report'' and ''Charlie Rose (talk show), Charlie Rose'', and has lectured at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Biography
A third generation Chinese American, Sheryl WuDunn grew up in New York City on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She attended Cornell University, graduating with a B.A. in European History in 1981.
[Cornell News: Cornell Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) workplace colloqium webpage](_blank)
/ref> For three years, WuDunn worked for Bankers Trust Company as an international loan officer. After this, she earned her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and Master of Public Administration, M.P.A. from Princeton University, Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
WuDunn married reporter Nicholas Kristof in 1988.["Sheryl WuDunn Wed to Reporter". ''The New York Times''. October 9, 1988.] After working for The Wall Street Journal and other publications, WuDunn joined the staff of ''The New York Times'' as a correspondent in the Beijing bureau in 1989.
WuDunn worked for a time for Goldman Sachs as a vice president in its investment management division as a private wealth advisor, before leaving to write a book.
Books
WuDunn has co-authored five best-sellers with her husband. ''China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power'' and ''Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia'' are non-fiction Asian studies books which examine the cultural, social, and political situation of East Asia largely through interviews and personal experiences.
Her third best-selling book, was ''Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,'' and WuDunn later was featured in the award-winning PBS documentary made of the book.
''Half the Sky'' was also made into a game on Facebook with more than 1.1 million players.
Her fourth best-seller, ''A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity,'' published in 2014, is about how altruism affects us and how we can make a difference.
It was turned into a widely watched PBS documentary, featuring Jennifer Garner, Eva Longoria, Alfre Woodard, Blake Lively, in early 2015. ''Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope'', published in 2020, was also a New York Times best seller.
Boards
WuDunn served for more than a decade on the Cornell University board of trustees, including as a member of the board's finance committee and investment committee. Initially appointed to the Cornell board by the university president, she was later reappointed by the New York governor and served under two governors. She also served for many years on the advisory council of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and in 2013 was elected by alumni to the Princeton University board of trustees. She currently serves on the board of advisors for Fuel Freedom Foundation. WuDunn is also on the advisory boards of a number of start-up companies in a variety of fields, including healthcare and mobile security.
Bibliography
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References
External links
Interview with Wudunn for Guernicamag.com
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''Booknotes'' interview with Kristoff and WuDunn on ''China Wakes'', October 16, 1994.
Sheryl WuDunn
Video produced by ''Makers: Women Who Make America''
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{{DEFAULTSORT:WuDunn, Sheryl
1959 births
Living people
Cornell University alumni
American writers of Chinese descent
American feminist writers
American columnists
The New York Times writers
The New York Times corporate staff
Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners
George Polk Award recipients
Harvard Business School alumni
Princeton School of Public and International Affairs alumni
Goldman Sachs people
American journalists of Chinese descent
American investment bankers
21st-century American women writers
American women columnists
American women non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American women journalists of Asian descent