Sherrie Westin is President and CEO of Sesame Workshop, the global nonprofit behind Sesame Street, and serves on its Board of Trustees. Westin directs the Workshop’s efforts to provide impactful early learning through a broad variety of media as well as targeted social impact and research initiatives that address a wide range of critical issues facing children around the world.
Westin spearheaded a partnership with the International Rescue Committee to bring critical early education to children in the Middle East, which was awarded the MacArthur Foundation’s first ever $100 million grant, creating the largest early childhood intervention in the history of humanitarian response. This work has now expanded to reach children and families affected by crisis across five continents.
Westin has held leadership positions in media, nonprofit, and public service. She served as Assistant to the President for Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs for President George H.W. Bush, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. Department for Housing and Urban Development and held senior positions at the ABC Television Network and U.S. News & World Report. Since joining the Workshop in 1998, Westin has led key organizational efforts spanning programming, licensing, research, education, and brand strategy, harnessing the power of media to reach children at scale.
Named a “Leading Global Thinker” by Foreign Policy Magazine, one of Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business,” and to Forbes’ “50 Over 50” list, Westin was also recognized with the Smithsonian’s “American Ingenuity Award” and the Thomas Jefferson Medal for Citizen Leadership by the University of Virginia.
She is Chair of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and serves on the boards of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition and Vital Voices Global Partnership. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Executive Leadership Council of the Early Childhood Development Education Action Network and the World Economic Forum Education 4.0 Alliance.
Westin is a graduate of the University of Virginia and holds an Honorary Doctorate from Concordia College.
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