SHERYL WUDUNN

Sheryl WuDunn was born on November 16, 1959 in New York City. She is a business executive, best-selling author, and the first Asian American to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism. WuDunn was honored in 1990 for her reporting from China on the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement and ensuing massacre. WuDunn earned an M.P.A. from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, where she is a former member of its Advisory Council. She earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. She graduated from Cornell University, where she is an emeritus member of the Board of Trustees and served on Cornell’s various Board committees. She has been vice president in the investment management division at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and a commercial loan officer at Bankers Trust. She has worked at The New York Times both as an executive and journalist. WuDunn was The Times’s first anchor of an evening news headlines program for a digital cable TV channel, the Discovery-Times; and as a foreign correspondent for The Times in Tokyo and Beijing, where she wrote about economic, financial, political and social issues. With her husband, Nicholas D. Kristof, she co-authored Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope (2020), a New York Times best-selling book that explores the great challenges and opportunities for America’s working class. In addition, they co-wrote A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity (2014), a New York Times best-selling book about altruism and how to bring about change in our society using evidence-based strategies. They also co-authored Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (2009), a No. 1 New York Times best-selling book about the challenges facing women around the globe. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize she has also won other journalism prizes, including the George Polk Award and Overseas Press Club awards. She lectures on economic, political and social topics such as the challenges in China-US relations, social impact investing, how to heal America’s inequality and polarization.