Janet Yang has been elected to her second term as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, AMPAS announced Tuesday. Yang was chosen by the Academy’s 55-member Board of Governors at the first meeting of the 2023-2024 board, which was elected in June.
Yang is the fourth woman to serve as Academy president, and the first Asian-American. She is a member of the Academy’s Producers Branch, with a filmography that includes “The Joy Luck Club,” “The People vs. Larry Flynt” and the animated feature “Over the Moon.”
Yang is a one of three Governors-at-Large. Where most of the AMPAS governors are elected by specific branches, the at-large positions are nominated by the Academy president and elected by the board. She was first nominated for the board by then-president John Bailey in 2019 and nominated again by David Rubin in 2022, putting her in the second year of her second three-year term.
Because of term limits on the Academy board, Yang will serve one additional year on the board and will be eligible for reelection as president next summer. But while Academy presidents are allowed to serve four consecutive one-year terms, she will leave the board in 2025 and thus lose her eligibility for a fourth year as president.
Largely because of those term limits, which have been tightened in recent years and have pushed many longtime governors and Academy officers off the board, the officers elected along with Yang are mostly newcomers to those positions.
In the eight vice president positions, only Lynette Howell Taylor and Kim Taylor-Coleman are returning officers. Bonnie Arnold is back after previously serving as an officer in 2019-2020, while DeVon Franklin is returning after serving in 2021-2022. The other officers — Howard Berger, Brooke Benton, Tom Duffield and Howard A. Rodman — will be serving as AMPAS officers for the first time.
The full slate of officers and their committee assignments:
Bonnie Arnold, Vice President (chair, Membership Committee)
Howard Berger, Vice President (chair, Museum Committee)
Brooke Breton, Vice President (chair, Education and Outreach Committee)
Tom Duffield, Vice President/Treasurer (chair, Finance Committee)
DeVon Franklin, Vice President (chair, Equity and Inclusion Committee)
Lynette Howell Taylor, Vice President (chair, Awards Committee)
Howard A. Rodman, Vice President/Secretary (chair, Governance Committee)
Kim Taylor-Coleman, Vice President (chair, History and Preservation Committee)
The AMPAS Board of Governors, which at 55 members is the largest it has ever been, “sets the Academy’s strategic vision, preserves the organization’s financial health and assures the fulfillment of its mission,” according to the Academy release announcing the officer election. The board is currently facing a time when the Oscars are trying to improve on the 2023 ceremony’s slight boost in ratings, and when the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes are threatening to create an awards season without stars.
