Sheryl WuDunn

Sheryl WuDunn
Born	(1959-11-16) November 16, 1959 New York City
Alma mater	Cornell University (B.A., 1981) Harvard Business School (M.B.A.) Princeton University (M.P.A.)
Occupation	author, business executive, lecturer
Spouse(s)	Nicholas D. Kristof

Sheryl WuDunn (simplified Chinese: 伍洁芳; traditional Chinese: 伍潔芳; pinyin: Wǔ Jiéfāng) is a Chinese American business executive, author, lecturer, and the first Asian American to win a Pulitzer Prize (c. November 16, 1959)

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. She speaks Chinese and some 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 NPR, The Colbert Report and 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 in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She attended Cornell University, graduating with a B.A. in European History in 1981. 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 M.P.A. from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

WuDunn married reporter Nicholas D. Kristof in 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. She currently serves on the Cornell University Board of Trustees, is a member of the board's finance committee, and previously served on the board's investment committee. Initially appointed to the Cornell board by the university president, she was later reappointed by the New York governor. She also served on the advisory council of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

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.

She won the Pulitzer Prize with her husband Nicholas D. Kristof for her reporting from Beijing about the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. WuDunn and Kristof were the first married couple ever to receive a Pulitzer for journalism. In addition to the Pulitzer, she also won a George Polk Award and an Overseas Press Club award, both for reporting in China.

In 2009, WuDunn and Kristof received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2011, WuDunn was listed by Newsweek as one of the 150 Women who Shake the World.

In 2012, WuDunn was selected as one of 60 notable members of the League of Extraordinary Women by Fast Company magazine. In 2013, she was included as one of the leading "women who make America" in the PBS documentary "The Makers." She was also featured in a 2013 Harvard Business School film about prominent women who have graduated from the business school.

Books

WuDunn has co-authored three 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, also co-written with Kristof, was published by Knopf in September 2009. It is titled: Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, and WuDunn later was featured in the PBS documentary made of the book.

External links

• Interview with Wudunn for Guernicamag.com
• WuDunn's talk at TED Global in July 2010
• Booknotes interview with Kristoff and WuDunn on China Wakes, October 16, 1994.
• Sheryl WuDunn Video produced by Makers: Women Who Make America