Sherrie Westin leads the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street assisting vulnerable children through mass media and targeted initiatives in the United States and around the world. She serves as Sesame Workshop’s chief mission ambassador, raising awareness, developing strategic partnerships, and cultivating philanthropic support to further the Workshop’s mission to help children everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. As of 2022 Sesame Street offered programs in 150 countries to over one – half a billion children each day.

Westin spearheaded a partnership with the International Rescue Committee to bring critical early education to children in the Syrian response region, 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 expanded to reach children affected by crisis in Bangladesh, East Africa, Latin America, and how t hose who have been forcibly displaced from Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Westin is a graduate of the University of Virginia and holds an Honorary Doctorate from Concordia College in New York.