Renita Bryant, the founder and CEO of Mynd Matters Publishing, has been elected board chair of the Independent Book Publishers Association. Bryant, IBPA’s vice chair from 2024–2025 and membership committee chair from 2021–2024, will serve as board chair through June 30, 2026. The position is renewable, and the association has yet to name a new vice chair.

Bryant founded the Atlanta-based hybrid company Mynd Matters in 2012 and launched the market research consultancy SightsSet in 2014. She is the author-publisher of several books including the Holidayville Adventures children’s series for Mynd Matters, which also publishes in the categories of business, adult fiction, and self help.

The IBPA board appointed Bryant interim board chair and quickly nominated her for the official role after the resignation of previous board chair Tieshena Davis, who is pursuing opportunities outside publishing. Davis, the first Black woman to lead IBPA, recently sold her hybrid company, Publish Your Gift, and directs her own consulting firm, Ekpansa.

With Davis’s departure, Bryant told PW, IBPA “needed to have someone that was officially at the helm of the organization. We wanted to make it clear that we have a focused strategy for the organization moving forward, and that [IBPA CEO] Andrea Fleck-Nisbet and I are aligned.”

“Renita sat on our executive committee, she was the head of our membership committee, and she’s been involved with the organization in addition to her board service,” said Fleck-Nisbet, who was named IBPA CEO in October 2022. “We’ve been serving together really closely in all of these different capacities across the organization, so I feel like it’s an easy and organic transition.”

2025 is a year of growth for IBPA, which will launch its first Boot Camp for Staff of Independent Publishers this September and will announce a new strategic plan in January. “We’re accelerating our work together and are really excited to move forward,” Fleck-Nisbet said. Bryant is “looking through the lens of a hybrid publisher and understanding from a technology and business perspective what all publishing folks are facing, especially in the next 12 months and beyond,” she added.

With more than a decade in hybrid publishing, Bryant brings insights about small business growth and a diverse mission to the association’s 3,000-plus members. At IBPA, “we’ve always talked about specific tactical issues” related to distribution, returns, and equity, Bryant said. “We’re having conversations about making sure that BISAC codes are inclusive, and trying to support and guide this industry in a way that’s equitable.” She noted that these discussions will shape the actions of the board and the forthcoming strategic plan.

Getting started, Bryant is invested in “educating and informing our members, so that they can run a profitable business in a space that feels very uncertain and unsure.” Her priority, she said, is to “give people a sense of peace of mind when it comes to what this industry can look like in three years, and how every independent publisher can find their place.”