Niko Pfund has been named director of Yale University Press, effective July 1. Pfund comes to Yale from Oxford University Press, where he served as global academic publisher as well as president of its U.S. division, OUP USA. He succeeds John Donatich, who has led Yale UP since 2003 and last year announced plans to retire.
“We have found in Niko a leader who prizes the time-honored tenets of rigorous scholarship and bold, future-oriented thinking in equal measure,” said Yale president Maurie McInnis in announcing the appointment. “He brings with him an immersive understanding of scholarly publishing and serious non-fiction as well as a proven track record, with experience in broadening the mandate of an academic press while abiding closely by its vital mission of contributing to a global understanding of human affairs.”
Pfund began his career at OUP in 1987 as an editorial assistant before moving in 1990 to New York University Press, where he was named director in 1996. He returned to OUP in 2000 and has helmed the press ever since. At OUP, Pfund oversaw a staff of hundreds across two U.S.-based offices, expanded the press's distribution capabilities, and supported digital growth.
A past president of the Association of University Presses, Pfund has served in a number of leadership roles in the academic publishing and library world, including stints on the governing board of Stanford University Press, the advisory board of the George Washington University Graduate Program in Publishing, and the board of directors of the Digital Public Library of America. He also held mentorship roles in publishing programs affiliated with Oxford, Columbia, and Pace Universities, as well as with Amherst College.
Pfund’s departure from OUP follows a tumultuous period for the press’s U.S. division. In 2023, OUP left its New York City offices, which it had occupied since the mid 1990s, while last year was marked by a protracted conflict between the publisher and its employee union, OUP USA Guild. Last April, OUP laid off Scott Morales, then its strategy and transformation coordinator and guild unit chair—a move that contributed to the guild’s decision to hold a strike last June. And in September, three weeks after the union ratified its first collective bargaining agreement, OUP laid off its entire U.S./North America design team and U.S. content transformation and standards team.
David Blight, the Sterling Professor of History at Yale, publications committee member, and author of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Frederick Douglass, described Pfund as “a brilliant, innovative book editor and publisher with years of experience at the highest levels,” adding: “He is a devoted book person in all the ways that matter and engaged with the constant changes of the digital age. Yale University Press has landed a dynamic, talented person to lead [it] into its next decade."
“Under John Donatich’s leadership these past 22 years, Yale University Press has consolidated its standing as one of our most influential university presses,” Pfund said in a statement. “It is a great privilege to join this impressive institution, and I look forward to meeting my new colleagues and with members of the Yale community, and to all that lies ahead.”
