Sherry Simpson Dean is currently the chief engagement and innovation strategist for the largest funder of independent documentary films in America (ITVS). She is a recognized leader at the intersection of media and social change. Most recently, she has reimagined and instituted a an impact innovation strategy for public media, amplifying a competitive edge for top-tier content creators and production companies in the news/documentary ecosystem.

Her expertise has been honed over the last fifteen years, during which time she has secured financing for multiple film, television and music projects. This list includes her production AMANDLA! a revolution in four-part harmony for which she won an Emmy and Sundance Awards. The film was developed and produced by Simpson over a 10 year period and is considered the seminal film on the role of song in South Africa’s victorious struggle for freedom. Following the success of this film she was deemed a subject-matter-expert on South Africa’s human rights struggle and lectured globally on the impact of arts and culture. Following that, her talents and expertise were put to use in her role as a west coast Executive Director for the United Nations Association based in Pasadena, CA. In that role she established grassroots campaigns to promote the UN Global Goals and led the founding of the city’s official UN Human Rights Day -- now an annual celebration in perpetuity of UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

She continues to produce films for social good as well as commercial ventures. Recent projects include a series of film shorts produced in the zone surrounding Jordan’s Zaatari Refugee camps. The storytelling project sponsored by the UNDP focuses on refugees who are creating businesses in the camps. She wrote a series of articles on US-Korea relations last year as part of a cohort sponsored by NPR and USC Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism. She traveled to the DMZ to report on the emerging summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un.

Sherry has worked in academia since 2010. She was a co-faculty advisor at Occidental College (Los Angeles) to a breakthrough student/faculty hybrid-initiative, Oxypreneurship (OXP). OXP seeks to transform liberal arts education by incorporating entrepreneurship and innovation. Sherry also served as an interim Dean of Intercultural Affairs at Occidental College. In 2018 she earned an executive certificate in social innovation from the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy as a compliment to her USC Annenberg work focused on ecosystems of power. Her TEDx Talk, Recipe for Freedom provides a new way to define personal success.

WITH HER WORDS

A library of voices of a generation.