sharon stirling

chief operating officer

Highlights

2017 - 2019: Deputy Director, Asia Program, German Marshall Fund of the United States

2012 - 2017: Senior Program Officer | Program Officer | Program Coordinator, Asia Program, German Marshall Fund of the United States

2012 - 2019: Production and Stage Manager for Brussels Forum, Atlantic Dialogues, & NATO Engages

2007 - 2009: Producer, NHK, Japan Broadcasting Corporation

Sharon Stirling is chief operating officer of ORF America.

Prior to helping establish ORF America in 2020, Ms. Stirling was chief operating officer of the BLK SHP Foundation. Previously, she worked for over seven years at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, most recently as deputy director of GMF’s Asia Program, and as production and stage manager for GMF’s flagship international policy conferences: Brussels Forum, Atlantic Dialogues, and NATO Engages. For the Asia program, Ms. Stirling ran day-to-day program operations, managed its annual budget, led the communications strategy, and oversaw research and publications on transatlantic cooperation on a rising Asia. In that role, she also managed GMF’s Japan portfolio, including two annual U.S.–Japan–Europe forums, the Young Strategists Forum for mid career professionals, and high-level workshops and seminars in Brussels, Berlin, Tokyo, and Washington. She supported the biannual Stockholm China Forum and India Trilateral Forum, where she first began working with ORF.

Prior to joining GMF, Ms. Stirling was a TV news producer for NHK, Japan’s public broadcasting organization at the Washington, D.C. bureau, covering the U.S. State Department, the 2008 presidential election, and 2008 global financial crisis.

A professionally trained cook, Ms. Stirling spent the first six months of the 2020 global coronavirus pandemic as a volunteer and then contractor in the Washington D.C. activation of Chef Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen, where she was part of a team that produced over 900,000 meals for those in need.

Ms. Stirling was born in the Philippines and grew up across Asia, including 10 years in Japan, four years in Taiwan, and one year in China, and has traveled extensively around the world. Stirling earned her B.S., graduating magna cum laude, from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service.