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, began her career in China in distribution. Her film and TV producing credits include The Joy Luck Club, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Shanghai Calling, High Crimes, Dark Matter, Zero Effect, and Over the Moon. The latter received a 2020 Oscar nomination for best animated feature film (though Yang was not among the nominees).  Yang won an Emmy in 1995 for the HBO film, Indictment: The McMartin Trial, which was voted outstanding made for television movie. She shared the award with Abby Mann, Diana Pokorny and Oliver Stone.

Yang most recently served on the board as vice president and chair of the membership committee and prior to that, the membership and governance committee.  She is also co-chair of the Academy’s Asian affinity group.

“Janet is a tremendously dedicated and strategic leader who has an incredible record of service at the Academy,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer said in a statement. “She has been instrumental in launching and elevating several Academy initiatives on membership recruitment, governance, and equity, diversity, and inclusion. I am thrilled that she is taking on the esteemed role of Academy president and look forward to working closely with her on our shared vision to serve our membership, celebrate the collaborative arts and sciences of motion pictures, and inspire the next generation of filmmakers.”

These officers were also elected:

• Teri E. Dorman, vice president (chair, membership committee)
• Donna Gigliotti, vice president/secretary (chair, governance committee)
• Lynette Howell Taylor, vice president (chair, awards committee)
• Larry Karaszewski, vice president (chair, history and preservation committee)
• David Linde, vice president/treasurer (chair, finance committee)
• Isis Mussenden, vice president (chair, museum committee)
• Kim Taylor-Coleman, vice president (chair, equity and inclusion committee)
• Wynn P. Thomas, vice president (chair, education and outreach committee)

Gigliotti, Karaszewski, Linde, Mussenden and Thomas were re-elected as officers.  It will be the first officer stint for Dorman, Howell Taylor and Taylor-Coleman.

Here is a complete listing of the Academy’s 2022-23 board of governors:

Actors Branch: Whoopi Goldberg, Marlee Matlin, Rita Wilson
Casting Directors Branch: Richard Hicks, Kim Taylor-Coleman, Debra Zane
Cinematographers Branch: Dion Beebe, Paul Cameron, Mandy Walker
Costume Designers Branch: Ruth E. Carter, Eduardo Castro, Isis Mussenden
Directors Branch: Susanne Bier, Ava DuVernay, Jason Reitman
Documentary Branch: Kate Amend, Chris Hegedus, Jean Tsien
Executives Branch: Pam Abdy, Donna Gigliotti, David Linde
Film Editors Branch: Nancy Richardson, Stephen Rivkin, Terilyn A. Shropshire
Makeup Artists and Hairstylists Branch: Howard Berger, Bill Corso, Linda Flowers
Marketing and Public Relations Branch: Megan Colligan, Laura C. Kim, Christina Kounelias
Music Branch: Lesley Barber, Charles Bernstein, Charles Fox
Producers Branch: Jason Blum, Lynette Howell Taylor, Jennifer Todd
Production Design Branch: Tom Duffield, Missy Parker, Wynn P. Thomas
Short Films and Feature Animation Branch: Bonnie Arnold, Jon Bloom, Marlon West
Sound Branch: Gary C. Bourgeois, Peter Devlin, Teri E. Dorman
Visual Effects Branch: Rob Bredow, Brooke Breton, Paul Debevec
Writers Branch: Larry Karaszewski, Howard A. Rodman, Eric Roth
Governors-at-Large: DeVon Franklin, Rodrigo García, Janet Yang

Political leaders are weighing in on Atlanta’s Music Midtown festival cancellation on Monday after event organizers announced the 2022 edition would no longer take place. Industry sources tell Billboard that the festival was forced to cancel due to recent changes to Georgia gun laws that prevent the festival from banning guns on to the publicly owned festival grounds like city-owned Piedmont Park, where Music Midtown is held.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams took to social media to express her concerns about the cancellation, calling the situation “shameful, but not surprising.” Abrams cited the loss of Music Midtown’s $50 million economic impact as a major concern and took aim at her political opponent and Georgia governor Brian Kemp.

“Brian Kemp’s dangerous and extreme gun agenda endangers the lives of Georgians, and the cancellation of Music Midtown is proof that his reckless policies endanger Georgia’s economy as well,” Abrams said in the statement. “Rather than respond to increased gun violence by strengthening safety, he doubled down on weakened gun laws.”

The cancellation of Music Midtown will cost Georgia’s economy $50 million.

It’s shameful, but not surprising, that the governor cares more about protecting dangerous people carrying guns in public than saving jobs and keeping business in Georgia. pic.twitter.com/8cAECHE7IF

— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) August 1, 2022

In April, that Gov. Kemp signed legislation that made it legal for Georgia gun owners to carry a concealed handgun in public without a license from the state. The Live Nation-owned festival did not specify if the bill signed by Kemp or other recent gun-relaxing legislation in the state was the cause for Music Midtown’s cancellation. The festival released a statement on Aug. 1 reading, “due to circumstances beyond our control, Music Midtown will no longer be taking place this year.”

As Billboard previously reported, pro-gun rights groups had been emailing and posting comments of the festival’s social media page for several months, hinting at potential legal challenges from gun groups following a 2019 ruling that expanded a 2014 Georgia law that critics had dubbed the “Guns Everywhere” law. That law expanded gun carry rights on publicly owned land, like the city-owned Piedmont Park, although there was no legal consensus on whether or not the law applied to private events on city property, like Midtown Music.

Atlanta City Council president Doug Shipman has also expressed his concerns over the festival cancellation and what it could mean for upcoming events in Atlanta like Sweetwater 420 and Shaky Knees. Shipman told Rolling Stone, “I don’t know if it’s an unintended, or intended, consequence of the policy [that it could affect access to other local arts and culture events taking place on public property]. But I would hope that as we move into the next state legislative session in January, the state legislature looks at this and really thinks hard about, is this the kind of impact that we want to have? Or can we create a policy that has exemptions for large festivals and ticketed events?”

Shipman directed his concerns primarily on the economic impact of the festival – which a 2014 report by The Research Center at the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce cited by Atlanta Business Chronicle estimated Music Midtown’s total economic impact to be nearly $50 million and an economic impact specific to the Atlanta area of $20 million annually. “We know people travel here from elsewhere and they don’t just come to the festival,” he said. “They come a day early, they stay a day late, they stay at hotels and do other things that create economic activity. So certainly, it’s tens of millions of dollars.”

Shipman continued: “If festival owners do not feel like they can safely conduct business in Atlanta, Shipman fears they will take their events to neighboring states. “We’re always competing with other cities not only for music, but more broadly for economic development.”