Early career Sherman, a social worker, began her career working to help women who had been abused and people in poverty. She credits her skills in negotiations to her social work experience and education saying: "For me that core set of skills was in community organizing and clinical skills and I only half joke that those clinical skills have been very effective with both dictators and members of Congress ... it does help to understand interpersonal relations and how people think and feel and have different sets of interests." As part of the neighborhood movement, she worked as a social activist, alongside activists like
Geno Baroni and
Arthur Naparstek on problems related to low-income housing. Sherman's early jobs were in
partisan politics and social work. These included working as the director of EMILY's List, which provides money to pro-choice, female, Democratic political candidates. Sherman later headed North Korean negotiation policy until 2001. In 2001, in a
New York Times op-ed, Sherman recommended that the only way the US deal could deal with North Korea's disputed programs and prevent them achieving a nuclear capability was through
diplomacy, writing that Kim Jong Il now "appears ready to make landmark commitments." In 2011,
John Bolton said that Wendy Sherman had been central in forming a policy on North Korea that was "nothing less than appeasement."
Private sector, political, think-tank career She has been a vice chair of
Albright Stonebridge Group, Albright's international strategic consulting firm, since the group's formation in 2009. She advised Hillary Clinton during the
2008 presidential campaign, and she served with
Thomas Donilon as an agency review lead for the State Department in the
Obama presidential transition. In 2015 she was named as one of
The Forward 50. Sherman also sits on the
Atlantic Council's board of directors.
Fannie Mae From April 1996, Sherman became founding president and CEO of the newly created
Fannie Mae Foundation, which was developed by
Fannie Mae and endowed with $350 million in Fannie stock, with the goal of promoting home ownership and mortgages across wider sectors of American society. She has also been a member of the operating committee of
Fannie Mae. At Fannie Mae, she set in place the groundwork for the newly recreated foundation. In 1996, she described her mission as the first president of the Fannie Mae Foundation:
Under secretary of state for political affairs (2011–2015) On September 21, 2011, she was appointed to the position of
under secretary of state for political affairs by Secretary
Hillary Clinton. In this capacity, Sherman led the US team during six negotiating rounds between Iran and six world powers about
Tehran's nuclear program and was the fourth-highest-ranking member of the department. She was named part of a special task force by Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton to implement recommendations to improve protections for foreign service personnel, as a result of the
2012 Benghazi attack. Sherman was critical of
Benjamin Netanyahu's step back from a
two-state solution, suggesting it could impact the United States'
veto policy surrounding related resolutions at the United Nations. She was criticized by human rights organizations, including
Amnesty International for praising Ethiopia for "strengthening its democracy" in wake of the
2015 elections - citing
democratic backsliding and suppression of
human rights. She played a role in negotiating the details behind the
Syria peace talks of 2016.
Chief nuclear negotiator with Iran , national security advisor to the
prime minister of Israel, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on February 18, 2015 In October 2013, before negotiations began in Geneva between Iran and the so-called "
P5+1," she made a comment about the Iranian negotiating strategy in a Senate committee hearing. She said, "We know that deception is part of the DNA." This caused her some trouble when a number of Iranian officials, including some members of the country's parliament, asked her to apologize. She served as the lead negotiator for the United States in
the agreement reached with Iran on July 14, 2015, in Vienna.
Remarks on East Asia On February 27, 2015, Sherman told a conference at
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace "The Koreans and Chinese have quarreled with Tokyo over so-called
comfort women from World War II. There are disagreements about the content of history books and even the names given to various
bodies of water. All this is understandable, but it can also be frustrating." She continued, "Of course,
nationalist feelings can still be exploited, and it's not hard for a political leader anywhere to earn cheap applause by vilifying a former enemy. But such provocations produce paralysis, not progress." Her comments were condemned by South Korea, but an analyst at the
Asan Institute for Policy Studies said the reaction to Ms. Sherman's remarks seemed excessive, and that her comments were in line with US policy.
Deputy secretary of state (2021–2023) On January 16, 2021, President-elect
Joe Biden formally nominated Sherman to serve as deputy secretary of state under
Antony Blinken. On March 11, 2021, her nomination was reported out of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Her nomination was approved by the full Senate on April 13, 2021, by a vote of 56 to 42. She is the first woman to hold the position. She was sworn into office on April 14, 2021. In December 2021,
The Washington Post reported that Sherman lobbied to water down the language of the
Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. In May 2023,
Reuters reported that Sherman did not support stricter export control rules on
Huawei and wished to revive Blinken's canceled visit to China following the
2023 Chinese balloon incident. The same month,
CNN reported that Sherman was expected to leave her post in summer 2023. Sherman retired on July 28, 2023.
Post-Biden administration In April 2026, during an interview with
Bloomberg News on The Mishal Husain Show, Sherman accused
Benjamin Netanyahu of being responsible for the perpetrating the
genocide in Gaza, causing destabilization in the Middle East, while also emphasized the United States' duty to protect Israel and as close allies. She also said she didn't know if it was a literal genocide. ==Personal life==