Diane C. Yu is Chief of Staff and Deputy to the President at New York University, the nation’s largest private university. Her portfolio mirrors that of the President as his surrogate, advisor, and alter ego in dealings with NYU Trustees, deans, faculty, students, and the University Senate. She also teaches a freshman honors seminar on leadership in the College of Arts and Science and is the Executive Director of the Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Scholars Program, part of the recently launched NYU-Abu Dhabi Institute. Previously, she was the Associate General Counsel and Managing Counsel at Monsanto Company, General Counsel for the State Bar of California, a California Superior Court Commissioner, and a White House Fellow appointed by the President. She has argued and won over 30 cases in the California Supreme Court and one case in the U.S. Supreme Court.

A national bar leader and frequent speaker and writer, she is the Immediate Past President of the White House Fellows Association Board and on the boards of the American Management Association and Executive Committee of the Oberlin College Board. She has been active in the American Bar Association and was the first woman of color to chair the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession and first Asian American to chair any Section or Division of the ABA (the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar). She helped found the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the Asian Bar of California, and the Missouri Asian American Bar Association. Yu has received many awards and honors, including Ten Outstanding Young Women of America, an honorary doctor of laws from the City University of New York, the Trailblazer Award from the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, and the Missouri Woman Justice Award.

Ms. Yu received her B.A. from Oberlin and J.D. from the University of California (Boalt Hall School of Law in Berkeley), and was awarded a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) from the City University of New York.