Sharon Gay was deputy chief of staff and executive counsel to Mayor Bill Campbell in the mid 1990s.

Sharon is a lawyer. She currently works as a partner practicing public policy at the law firm Dentons. In this role, she was involved in financing for Ponce City Market, Glenwood Place, Madison Yards, Stockyards, Atlanta Dairies, and Krog Street Market. She was the Vice President of Governmental Affairs for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. She previously worked as a clerk for U.S. District Judge Horace Ward and then represented the Georgia Department of Transportation working for the state attorney general's office.

Sharon has lived in Atlanta for 42 years. She grew up in northern Alabama, and she graduated from Vanderbilt University. The impact of the civil rights movement and the women's rights movement using the law to affect social change convinced her to go to law school at Emory. She lives in Inman Park with her husband, Neil Schemm, and their basset hounds Molly and Humphrey. They attend church at St. Luke's Episcopal in downtown.