Michelle Byrd is managing director, Producers Guild of America -East. She oversees East Coast operations from the PGA’s New York office.

Byrd previously served for 12 years, from 1997 to 2009, as executive director of IFP, the Independent Filmmaker Project, where she relocated IFP’s annual Gotham Awards to the start of awards season. From 2010 to 2013, Byrd was co-president, with Asi Burak, of Games for Change and oversaw the Games for Change Festival, serving as an executive producer on Half the Sky games, based on Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s best-selling book.

Most recently, she ran her own consulting practice providing strategic planning, program and partnership development, and management advisory 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, among others.

Byrd is a recipient of the “Made in New York Award” from NYC’s Mayor and the “Good Egg Award” from Chicken & Egg Pictures, and sits on the Board of the Adrienne Shelly Foundation and the Advisory Boards of Chicken & Egg Pictures and STREB Lab for Action Mechanics.

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