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Charna Sherman

Borderlight Festival

Charna Sherman

A Cleveland native, Charna Sherman is an accomplished trial lawyer specializing in complex commercial litigation. In 2011, she left a partnership at one of Cleveland’s highest profile law firms to found her own boutique.

She is appointed to serve through March 31, 2024.

Ms. Sherman is passionate about diversity, and has a national reputation for spearheading groundbreaking initiatives over her career to advance women in particular not only in the law, but other fields as well, including the arts. Her Ruby Shoes philanthropic fund with the Jewish Federation of Cleveland has helped fund both a recent installation by trans artist A.K. Burns as part of the FRONT Triennial, and the launch in Ohio for the first time of the highly acclaimed Women to Watch program of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Committed to the transformative power of the arts, she also chaired a new effort to pull influential women in Cleveland together to support Cleveland Public Theater and the Gordon Square Arts District, and was nominated by CPT to serve as a Patron Ambassador of the National New Play Network.

An active participant in the arts community, she has served on the boards of FRONT International, DANCECleveland, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and the Executive Board of the Contemporary Art Society of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Ms. Sherman also traveled this year and in 2015 to Israel with the Jewish Community Federation’s Israel Arts and Culture Initiative. A theater lover since childhood, Ms. Sherman’s newest pursuit has been investing in and producing Broadway and West End shows.

Educated at Harvard and Georgetown, Ms. Sherman is the mother of two millennials; her daughter is attending the London Business School and her son is pursuing a medical career in infectious disease.