Sheri Linn Dew (born November 21, 1953) is an American author, publisher, the executive vice president of Deseret Management Corporation, and chief executive officer of the Deseret Book Company, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. Dew has also been a religious leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and an inspirational speaker. In 2003, she was described as “the most prominent single [unmarried] LDS woman right now.”
Deseret Book Company owns two retail chains (Deseret Book and Seagull), two publishing companies (Deseret Book and Covenant), an events division (Time Out for Women), a digital division, a magazine (LDS Living) and a film-distribution company (Excel).
Personal life
Dew was born November 21, 1953, in Ulysses, Kansas, to Charles and JoAnn Peterson Dew. The oldest of five children, she grew up on a "sprawling grain farm" and attended local schools. Of this time, she has said:
I drove a tractor almost as soon as I could reach the pedals. I know how to set an irrigation tube, and I helped with the harvest. . . . On the farm you learn early that you reap what you sow. . . . I am innately very shy, and I have struggled with that challenge for years. My work has helped because I’ve had to interview people from all walks of life.
Dew told interviewers in 2002 and 2004 that as a teenager she was 5 feet, 10 inches tall and was a standout in high school basketball, averaging 23 points and 17 rebounds a game. A Bloomberg Businessweek reporter wrote in 2012 that Dew had the "friendly, no-nonsense manner" of a high school basketball coach." Another writer noted in 2010 that Dew's "confident and collected demeanor always kept her on task."
She learned the piano and traveled on three USO tours to Alaska, Europe, the Mediterranean and Asia as an accompanist during her college years at Brigham Young University (BYU), where she earned a bachelor's degree in history, with an emphasis in American religious history.
Dew is close friends with Wendy Watson Nelson, and they presented together at the 2016 RootsTech conference.
Career
Beginning
After graduating from BYU, Dew moved into the publishing business associated with the LDS Church, starting out as an assistant editor at Bookcraft beginning in 1978. She spent the next six years as an editor and associate publisher at This People magazine.
Deseret Book
Dew joined Deseret Book in 1988 as an associate editor and became director of publishing in 1989, vice president of publishing in 1993, and executive vice president in 2000. She was named the president and CEO of the company in March 2002, succeeding Ronald A. Millett. At the time Deseret Book consisted of a retail chain of some 40 stores and a publishing division. Bloomberg Businessweek reported in 2012 that Deseret Book was a "flailing" business when Dew took it over but that she "pulled the publisher and distributor out of the red 10 years ago."
In 2002 the company launched its Time Out for Women event series, and in 2004 it acquired Excel Entertainment, which brought Deseret Book into film distribution. Some of Excel's films include Saints and Soldiers, Forever Strong, The Work and the Glory, 17 Miracles and Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed.
In 2006, Deseret Book acquired the Seagull retail chain of twenty-six bookstores and Covenant Publishing, which publishes and distributes books, games, and gifts.
In June 2011, the company introduced Deseret Bookshelf, a free e-reader application for Apple and Android mobile devices, with nearly 1,500 digital titles for purchase. On a personal level, Dew noted that the Bookshelf app had "changed the way I research and study the gospel" because "I can always have my full library with me." The app allows the researcher to search all Deseret Book titles at one time as well as other associated Gospel references.
Broadcasting
Dew is a director of the Bonneville International Corporation, a broadcasting organization owned by the LDS Church.
Public activities
Politics, government, and charity
Dew is a member of both the BYU Marriott School of Management’s National Advisory Council and the President’s Leadership Council for BYU-Hawaii. In March 2003, the White House appointed her a member of the U.S. Delegation to the Commission on the Status of Women and Girls at the United Nations.
After a 1999 trip to Ghana, Dew began to spearhead Chapters of Hope, a program to send children’s books to impoverished areas of the world. Through 2011, nearly 50,000 books had been shipped to Ghana, the Pacific Islands, Russia, Eastern Europe, Zimbabwe and elsewhere by that organization.