Producers Guild Hires Michelle Byrd as PGA East Managing Director

The Producers Guild of America’s national board of directors has hired veteran executive Michelle Byrd for the newly created post of managing director of the PGA East.

Starting May 8, Byrd will oversee the guild’s East Coast operations from the PGA’s New York office. She will report to National Executive Director/Chief Operating Officer Vance Van Petten, and PGA Associate National Executive Director/COO Susan Sprung.

Byrd has spent more than 20 years working with non-profit media organizations involved with film, digital, and games. Based in New York, she served from 1997 to 2009) as executive director of the Independent Filmmaker Projecta and worked on a collaboration with the United Nations and re-positioning IFP’s Gotham Awards into awards season.

From 2010-2013, Byrd was co-president of Games for Change with Asi Burak, oversaw the Games for Change Festival and served as an executive producer on “Half the Sky” Movement games. Most recently, she ran her own consulting practice providing services for Ghetto Film School, Green Beetz, Museum of the Moving Image, New York State Commission on National and Community Service, and the Governor’s Office of Motion Picture & Television Development.

The Los Angeles-based PGA has more than 7,000 members and represents feature film, television and new media producers.

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