Micah May

Former McKinsey consultant and Harvard Law graduate with 15+ years of executive experience leading post-merger integrations, strategic coalitions, and multi-million-dollar growth for national non-profits and public media networks.

Director of Business Development at LYRASIS (2025 – Present)

National library non-profit; home of The Palace Project (1K+ member orgs)

• Merger Integration & Service Continuity: Oversaw the transition of DPLA’s ebook operations into Lyrasis, transferring key publisher and vendor relationships while maintaining uninterrupted service across 1,500+ partner libraries.
• Publisher Deals & Content Growth: Developed innovative licensing models and onboarded 100+ publisher partners to Palace Marketplace — securing long-term agreements with Big 5 publishers, Amazon Publishing, and Audible—to expand library e-content availability and drive financial sustainability.
• Strategic Partnerships & Platform Integrations: Executed complex system integrations and distribution partnerships with Ingram, BiblioCommons, Bookwire, and InAudio, expanding platform reach and growing recurring revenue.
• Sector Convening & Executive Thought Leadership: Chair of the ALA Ebook Interest Group, lead convener of national Ebook Friday pre-conferences, host of The Digital Shelf series, and co-organizer of IndieLib — leading national policy and strategy discussions across media, tech, and non-profit executives.

Director of Ebook Services at DIGITAL PUBLIC LIBRARY OF AMERICA (DPLA) (2019 – 2025)

National network & digital innovation incubator

• Enterprise Growth & Financial Sustainability: Built and scaled a B2B marketplace (DPLA Exchange, now Palace Marketplace) serving 1,500+ libraries nationwide, growing sales from $0 to $3M+ to achieve full financial self-sustainability. Grew the community by pitching the digital platform vision directly to state and executive library leaders.
• National Platform Operations: Managed national digital content distribution, publisher relations, platform operations, and a 12-member librarian Curation Corps. Expanded available catalog from 100K to 2M+ titles through direct contract negotiations. Led creation of the Open Bookshelf, the world's largest curated collection of free ebooks.
• High-Impact Campaigns & Fundraising: Conceived and launched The Banned Book Club, securing national press coverage and public endorsements from President Barack Obama and the Obama Foundation. Won competitive grant funding from Sloan, MacArthur, and Knight foundations.
• National Convenings & Stakeholder Engagement: Co-creator of the IndieLib conference (2024–2026) and creator/co-organizer of the Collaborating for Access webinar series, bringing together independent publishers, tech leaders, and libraries to spur industry innovation; served as an invited expert on Project Lend and member of the Library of Congress Copyright Public Modernization Committee.

Executive Advisor & Senior Expert at INDEPENDENT STRATEGY & TECHNOLOGY CONSULTANT (2017 – 2019)

• Digital Public Library of America (2017–2019): Designed and launched the DPLA Exchange e-content marketplace to advance long-term organizational financial sustainability.
• Library for All (2017–2019): Served as part-time Director of Technology deploying digital reading platforms across developing markets (Rwanda, Haiti, Papua New Guinea) that reached 100K+ children.
• Education Development Center / USAID (2019): Advised the Global Book Alliance on optimizing open digital publishing supply chains in low-resource nations.
• Macmillan Publishing & Internet Archive (2017): Formulated data-driven publishing business models for Macmillan and structured evaluation frameworks for Internet Archive’s MacArthur Foundation 100&Change grant proposal.

Senior Director, Innovation & Partnerships at NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY (2009 – 2016)

Largest US library system (92 sites, 2,000+ staff, $300M+ budget). Progression: Dir of Strategy ‘09–’13 ▪ Sr Dir of Business Development ‘14-’15 ▪ Sr Dir Innovation & Partnerships ‘15-’16

• System-Wide Strategic Planning: Led strategic planning system-wide on projects ranging from capital strategy and branch operations to programming and digital innovation.
• Digital Product Innovation: Conceived and launched SimplyE / Library Simplified, an open-source platform providing streamlined access to 300K+ eBooks across disparate content feeds; founded NYPL Labs pioneering crowdsourcing and open data; co-created MyLibraryNYC with three NYC library systems and the DOE to serve over 1M books to students.
• Deal Making & National Public-Private Partnerships: Negotiated groundbreaking e-content sales agreements with Simon & Schuster, Penguin, and HarperCollins; co-founded Open eBooks in partnership with the White House, securing $250M in donated digital content from commercial publishers to reach over 8M children.
• Fundraising & Capital Campaign Leadership: Co-authored the "Invest in Libraries" advocacy campaign, yielding a historic $30M+ city budget increase; served as Principal Investigator securing $15M+ in public, private, and foundation grants from IMLS, Ford, Revson, and Sloan.
• Coalition Leadership: Founded ReadersFirst, an advocacy coalition representing over 300 library systems nationwide to unify institutional bargaining power.

Consultant / Manager, Center for Problem Solving at MCKINSEY & COMPANY (2005 – 2009)

Top global management consultancy serving Fortune 500 executives

• Internal R&D & Methodology Leadership: Spearheaded an internal R&D center for advanced analytics, predictive modeling, decision-support frameworks, and machine learning methodologies deployed across global client engagements.
• Corporate Strategy Engagements: Led operational redesigns, growth strategies, and cost-reduction engagements for Fortune 500 clients across retail banking, life insurance, commercial banking, and pharmaceuticals.

Juris Doctor (J.D.) – HARVARD LAW SCHOOL (2005)

B.A. in Philosophy & Political Science – UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER (2001)