Wendy Sherman

Wendy Ruth Sherman is a Jewish-American diplomat, social worker and public leader whose career has linked domestic social policy with the most demanding questions of international security. She was the first woman to serve as United States deputy secretary of state, and she played central roles in negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.

Sherman’s distinctive contribution lies in the combination of social-work training and senior diplomatic practice. Before entering the upper levels of government, she worked with abused women, low-income communities, children and families involved with the welfare system. That experience shaped a negotiating style grounded in listening, understanding competing interests and turning conflict into practical avenues for agreement.

From social work to public service

Sherman was born on June 7, 1949, in Baltimore, Maryland, to a Jewish family. Her family later moved to Pikesville, where she attended high school. She graduated from Boston University in 1971 with a degree in sociology and urban studies, and earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of Maryland in 1976.

She began her professional life in social welfare and community activism. Her early work included assisting women who had experienced abuse and supporting people living in poverty. She also participated in neighborhood efforts focused on low-income housing. In Maryland, she held senior posts in child welfare: she served as special secretary for children and youth, directed the state’s office of child welfare, and supervised protection, foster care, adoption and group-home services.

Her move into politics extended rather than displaced that commitment to public service. Sherman served for about three years as chief of staff to Barbara Mikulski and managed the campaign through which Mikulski was first elected to the United States Senate in 1987. Sherman later directed EMILY’s List, an organization that supported Democratic women seeking public office.

Building opportunity through public institutions

In April 1996, Sherman became the founding president and chief executive officer of the Fannie Mae Foundation. Established to broaden access to affordable housing and homeownership, the foundation was endowed with $350 million in Fannie Mae stock. As its first leader, Sherman helped create the institution’s operating foundation and set its priorities.

The programs associated with her leadership sought to reach families who had often lacked equal access to housing information and financial opportunity. They included efforts aimed at new Americans and immigrants, initiatives to help renters understand pathways toward homeownership, and work to address discriminatory practices in mortgage lending. This was public policy with a direct effect on everyday life: the possibility of stable housing, greater economic security and fuller participation in American society.

At the center of American diplomacy

During the Clinton administration, Sherman held senior positions at the State Department. From 1993 to 1996 she served as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs. From 1997 to 2001 she was a senior counselor, special adviser to President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and the administration’s policy coordinator for North Korea.

In that role, Sherman was at the center of diplomatic efforts to halt North Korea’s nuclear and missile development. The negotiations produced commitments under which North Korea agreed to freeze and dismantle elements of its nuclear program and offered to stop producing, testing or deploying missiles with ranges greater than 300 miles. It also offered to halt the sale of missiles, components and related technology. Although the understandings did not settle the issue permanently, the process demonstrated both the possibilities and the limits of diplomacy in dealing with hostile governments and weapons programs with global consequences.

Leading the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program

In 2011, President Barack Obama appointed Sherman under secretary of state for political affairs. She was the first woman to hold the position, then the fourth-highest post in the State Department. In that capacity she led the American delegation through six rounds of negotiations between Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.

Sherman served as the United States’ lead negotiator in the agreement reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015. Known as the Iran nuclear deal, the agreement was designed to limit Iran’s nuclear program and place it under international monitoring in return for sanctions relief. Her work required technical preparation, political patience and the ability to bridge the interests of governments that did not share the same strategic outlook. It made her one of the principal American figures in shaping policy on nuclear proliferation and Middle Eastern security.

During the same period, Sherman contributed to other diplomatic efforts, including preparations for the 2016 Syria peace talks. After the 2012 attack in Benghazi, she served on a task force examining recommendations to strengthen the protection of American foreign-service personnel.

The first woman to serve as deputy secretary of state

Following Joe Biden’s election, Sherman was nominated to serve as deputy secretary of state under Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The Senate approved her nomination in April 2021, and she was sworn in on April 14. She became the first woman in American history to hold the position.

As deputy secretary, Sherman helped manage the State Department’s policy and operations during a period of heightened tension involving China and Russia, while also working on alliances, international security and regional crises. She served until July 28, 2023. Her later work continued to focus on public leadership, international relations and the preparation of future leaders.

Leadership, writing and teaching

Sherman served as a professor of the practice of public leadership and director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School. In that setting, she brought together the lessons of community work, social welfare, electoral politics and international negotiation.

She has also served as a senior counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group and as a member of the Atlantic Council’s board of directors. In 2018 she published Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power and Persistence, a book about the courage and persistence demanded by public life. She also wrote about the negotiations that produced the Iran nuclear agreement.

Sherman is married to Bruce Stokes, a former journalist and former director of Global Economic Attitudes at the Pew Research Center, and they have one daughter. Her professional life illustrates how training centered on people and communities can become the foundation for leadership on the international stage.

Why Wendy Sherman belongs in Moreshet

Wendy Sherman merits inclusion in the archive because her career joined social responsibility, Jewish-American public leadership and international diplomacy. She did more than occupy prominent offices: she directed systems protecting children, worked to expand access to affordable housing, built an institution intended to widen economic opportunity, and led negotiations concerning nuclear proliferation and global security.

Her life offers Jewish and Israeli readers a concrete example of how public service, persistence and the ability to listen amid deep disagreement can shape institutions and international policy. Her work also reflects the significant role Jewish Americans have played in American public life and in decisions with direct consequences for the Middle East. For these reasons, Moreshet and Moreshet.com preserve Sherman’s story not simply as the biography of a senior American official, but as the record of a woman whose work connected human welfare, institutional leadership and diplomacy with worldwide consequences.