Board Chair
Diane Yu, from New York City, retired from New York University in November 2022 after twenty–two years as a University Administrator and Instructor. She was the Advisor to Leadership for New York University Abu Dhabi, the Deputy President of New York University, and the Chief of Staff and Deputy to the President of NYU. She was also the founding executive director of the Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Scholars Program in Abu Dhabi and founding executive director of the NYU Abu Dhabi Summer Academy for more than a decade. She was the founder of the NYU’s Women’s Leadership Forum and taught the undergraduate leadership honors course in the NYU College of Arts and Science for 19 years. In 2013 she was named the executive director of the Commission on Global Ethics and Citizenship, chaired by former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Diane was previously managing counsel at a Fortune 500 company, General Counsel for the State Bar of California (for whom she successfully argued a case in the U.S. Supreme Court), a Superior Court Commissioner in Oakland, California, and in private law practice.
She has been very active as a volunteer on commissions and boards. She joined the OSF Board of Directors in 2016 and was an Artistic Director Council member from 2017–2019. Diane chaired the Search Committee for the Executive Director in 2019–20, was Vice Chair of the Board in 2018–19, Co–chair of the Board in 2019–20 with Peter Koehler, and has been Board Chair and President since March 2020.
Diane was the first Asian American to chair any American Bar Association (ABA) section or division when she was elected Chair of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar in 2000 and was the first woman of color to chair the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. She was the vice chair of the Board of Trustees of Oberlin College and was also on the boards of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, American Management Association, and Soho Repertory Company. Presently she is a member of the National Council for the American Theatre. Her awards include Ten Outstanding Young Women of America, Diversity Awards from the Minority Bar Association and the Judicial Council of California, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Trailblazer Award, St. Louis Women in Business Leadership Award, and the Women Leader Award from the Asian American Bar Association of New York. Diane received her B.A. from Oberlin, J.D. from Berkeley Law School, and was awarded a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) from the City University of New York.