Kathryn Galan of National Association of Latino Independent Producers Resigns

NALIP announces the departure of Kathryn F. Galán. After 10 1/2 years at NALIP, Kathryn has decided to resign as Executive Director to finish her Master's Degree and pursue new opportunities.

Bienvenida (Beni) Matas will act as Interim Executive Director until a permanent replacement is found. Beni has a long history with NALIP and its mission, as a founding Board member and the organization's first coordinator.

The Board of Directors and staff will continue with its mission to further Latino content creators with upcoming conference Diverse Voices, Universal Content (April 13-15 at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, Universal City, CA) and NALIP's other excellent programs. 

National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) is a membership organization dedicated to Latino/a media professionals and to increasing the success of their projects and employment. NALIP has nearly 800 producers, directors, writers and other members working in film, documentary and new media.

Kathryn Galan established NALIP as the preeminent national Latino media organization by taking it from an NCLR special project with a steering committee to an autonomous and substantial advocacy and professional development organization. She has overseen the growth of its membership 5-fold, plus created and programmed six respected National Signature programs. She has been responsible for all of the organization's staffing and day-to-day management, millions in corporate and foundation fundraising, publicity strategies and branding, regional programs and chapter development, plus design of the www.nalip.org website and eNewsletter Latinos in the Industry. In addition, she has supervised NALIP's Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth National Conferences. At Sin Limites: Trends in Pan-Latino Cinema in March 2008, she and her team programmed over two hundred speakers, instructors, funders and executives into plenary sessions, workshops and seminars. She also oversaw the fourth Latino Media Market at Conference 9, a program designed to further advance the opportunities for project funding and Latino media employment.

She has been an independent producer (French Kiss, Squanto, Daybreak), new media consultant and studio executive. She sits on the board of Women Make Movies.  She was head of production for Atlantic Entertainment Group and a production Vice President at Walt Disney Studio's Hollywood Pictures, then ran Meg Ryan's Prufrock Pictures and her own consultancy firm, EKR Strategies. In addition to the management and development responsibilities of these film and television production companies, she arranged for millions in international co-financing. She is a graduate of Amherst College, and did initial media studies in video art at SUNY Buffalo, then MA studies in film history and criticism at UCLA, specializing in World Cinema.