Senior Vice President and Editor in Chief, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Topic: O Brave New World: Encyclopædia Britannica Goes Digital

As senior vice president and editor in chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Hoiberg is responsible for the revision and maintenance of Britannica’s 55-million-word core content. He has been deeply involved in expanding the company’s product line in both electronic and print publishing.

Hoiberg joined Encyclopædia Britannica in 1978 as an index editor in the editorial department. In 1982, he was promoted to senior index editor. From 1983 to 1986, he served as liaison to the Encyclopædia of China in Beijing, People’s Republic of China, during the development of the Concise Encyclopædia Britannica in Chinese. In 1986, he was named senior editor for Asian Products and, in 1988, director of Asian Product Development. In 1993, Hoiberg was promoted to vice president, international product development. He became editor in chief in 1997 and was promoted to senior vice president in 2001.

Hoiberg is a native of Devils Lake, N.D., and earned a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature and philosophy from Augustana in 1971. He has an A.M. and a Ph.D. in Chinese literature from the University of Chicago. His A.M. thesis was on the modern Chinese poet Xu Zhimo, and his Ph.D. dissertation was on the traditional Chinese opera “The Broken-down Kiln.”