Incumbents once again dominated elections for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors, with 10 board members being reelected to their positions and three past governors returning to the board after a hiatus.
Marlee Matlin, Jason Reitman and Jason Blum were among the governors who won reelection in balloting that was done by 17 of the Academy’s 19 branches and announced on Wednesday.
This is the third year in a row in which incumbents won in the vast majority of board races, following two years of substantial turnover after stricter term limits forced many longtime governors off the board.
The only first-time governors to be elected by votes from each branch were Peter Kujawski, who replaced Donna Gigliotti in the Executives Branch; Gigi Williams, who replaced Howard Berger in the Makeup Artists and Hairstylists Branch; Carter Burwell, who replaced Charles Fox in the Music Branch; and Andrew Roberts, who replaced Paul Debevec in the Visual Effects Branch.
Gigliotti and Berger had to leave the board because of term limits dictating that governors must take a two-year break after serving two consecutive three-year terms. Fox couldn’t run again because he had reached the lifetime limit of 12 years on the board.
Costume Designers Branch governor Ruth E. Carter and Writers Branch governor Eric Roth also had to leave the board because of term limits, and they were replaced by former governors Isis Mussenden and Larry Karaszewski, respectively. Former governor Christina Kounelias was also returned to the board to represent the Marketing and Public Relations Branch, where she will replace Megan Colligan.
The Academy consists of 19 branches, 16 of which are represented on the board by three governors. The Animation and Short Film branches, which were previously lumped together in a single branch, have been split into separate branches with two and one governors, respectively, while the newest branch, Production & Technology, is also represented by a single governor.
Each governor serves a three-year term, with the governors within a branch serving staggered terms so that one seat is up for election every year.
An additional three Governors-at-Large — currently DeVon Franklin, Rodrigo Garcia and Janet Yang — are nominated by the Academy president and approved by the board rather than being elected by member votes. Franklin, Garcia and Yang were first appointed to the board by then-president John Bailey in 2019 and reappointed by David Rubin in 2022, so they must also step down at the conclusion of their current terms.
Yang is currently in her third one-year term as AMPAS president, but she will not be eligible for a fourth term because the president must be a sitting board member. Before the new board votes on her replacement in its first meeting, she will nominate a new slate of at-large governors.
The new board retains the past board’s balance of 29 women and 26 men, although that is subject to change depending on the new governors-at-large.
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