Sherry Chen, Manager

For the past ten years Sherry Chen has earned a reputation for providing skilled and practical guidance to both the public and private sectors in the areas of organizational development, program evaluation, strategic planning, and project management.

Currently Ms. Chen is the lead Business Project Manager to implement a statewide special education data system for the District of Columbia. Her leadership in this project has garnered both local and national recognition of her expertise and experience in special education policy and overall public management reform. Ms. Chen has also participated as senior consultant on education accountability and management reform projects for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Stupski Foundation, and the Paterson Public Schools in Paterson, New Jersey.

From 2005–2007, Ms. Chen served as Director of Special Projects to the Chief Executive Officer of the Baltimore City Public School System, where she led the implementation of several management reform initiatives to improve performance and accountability in the Special Education division, including the development and roll-out of a related services electronic tracking system to streamline a historically inefficient, paper-driven process of collecting and maintaining federally mandated student special education service information.

Prior to her experience at the Baltimore City schools, Ms. Chen worked as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Commissioner at the Department of Housing and Community Development of Baltimore City, where she was responsible for developing performance baselines, benchmarks and outcomes for the Property Acquisition, Disposition, Asset Management, Finance, and Grant offices within the Development division. In addition, she was responsible for overseeing the implementation of program initiatives in the areas of neighborhood planning, land use/site assembly, affordable homeownership, development finance, CDBG grant making and non-profit capacity building.

Earlier in her career, Ms. Chen worked for the Baltimore Empowerment Zone as Director of Data Monitoring and Evaluation. For Tompkins County, NY, she launched a successful public-private partnership initiative to restructure a county-wide system for financing the costs of early education to low- and middle-income families with children.

Ms. Chen holds a B.A. in American Studies and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Cornell University.