Thad McIlroy is a digital publishing analyst and author, and principal of The Future of Publishing, based in San Francisco. He is a contributing editor to Publishers Weekly, covering digital innovation, artificial intelligence and publishing startups. He has authored a dozen books and over five hundred articles on digital publishing. 

McIlroy is a founding partner in Publishing Technology Partners, a consultancy focused on the broad range of strategic technology issues in publishing.

An expert on publication metadata and online book marketing, he has taught the Metadata for Books course at Pace University in New York, in their Masters of Publishing Program. In 2024 he joined the advisory board of Johns Hopkins University Press and became a visiting scholar at the Publishing Master of Professional Studies program at The George Washington University.

He is co-author of the industry-standard The Metadata Handbook, 2nd Ed (co-authored with Renee Register).