Diane C. Yu serves as Chief of Staff and Deputy to the President.

In Yu's role as Chief of Staff and Deputy to the President, she manages the Office of the President and serves as a vehicle by which one can communicate with the President. She is an active listener on his behalf in the full portfolio of the President's office and works to ensure the effectiveness of the communication processes of the entire University Leadership Team. She also is the President's representative to trustees, faculty, students, and other audiences; leads selected policy initiatives; works closely with the deans; and participates in Presidential-level recruitment and retention efforts, including most dean searches. She is the founder of NYU's Women's Leadership Forum and recently was named the University's Senior Executive for the Office of Equal Opportunity. For the past seven years, she has taught a freshman honors seminar in the College of Arts and Science. In 2008 she was appointed the Executive Director of the Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Scholars Program, a special university student educational and enrichment program which operates in the UAE, formed as a partnership between NYU and the government of Abu Dhabi.

Yu was previously Associate General Counsel and Managing Counsel at Monsanto Company. Prior to that position, she was General Counsel for the State Bar of California, a California Superior Court Commissioner, appointed by the President of the United States as a White House Fellow, and in private practice in Oakland, CA.

A national bar leader and frequent speaker, she was the first woman of color to chair the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, and the first Asian American to chair any ABA section or division of the ABA in its history. The Council of that Section is designated the accrediting agency for U.S. law schools by the U.S. Department of Education. Yu served for six years on the Accreditation Committee of the Section, has served on site inspection teams numerous times for the ABA, and was appointed by the ABA President to the ABA Accreditation Task Force in 2008. She is past Chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, and was the first woman of color to serve in that role.

Yu also sits on the boards of Oberlin College, the American Management Association, the American Bar Foundation, and is Immediate Past President of the White House Fellows Foundation and Association. She was elected to the American Law Institute in 2000 and the ABA House of Delegates. Other leadership activities include co-founding the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and former service on the boards of the Commonwealth Club of California, the Association of Corporate Counsel, and the Boalt Hall School of Law Alumni Association.

Her awards include the 2001 Missouri Women Justice Award, 25 Most Influential Women in Business in St. Louis, Diversity Awards from the Minority Bar Association and the Judicial Council of California, and 2003 Trailblazer Award from the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.

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.