Motion Picture Academy

Producer Janet Yang was elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences by the organization’s board of governors. Her election was announced on Tuesday (Aug. 2). Yang is the fourth woman, and second person of color, to serve in that post. The first woman to serve as president was screen legend Bette Davis, though she served for just two months in 1941 before resigning. The other women to serve as president are Fay Kanin (1979-83) and Cheryl Boone Isaacs (2013-17), who is also the only previous person of color to serve in the post. Yang is beginning her second term as a governor-at-large, a position for which she was nominated by her predecessor as Academy president, David Rubin, and elected by the board of governors. Yang, a member of the producers branch since 2002, b...