David Linde,<\/a> the former chairman of Universal Pictures and CEO of Participant Media<\/a>, has been named CEO of the Sundance Institute. The nonprofit organization said Thursday that Linde will assume the role on Feb. 17, after this year\u2019s festival<\/a> concludes.<\/p>\n \u201cI am honored to join Sundance Institute as CEO to steward an organization that is essential to independent artists, the broader creative community, and culture at large,\u201d Linde said in a statement.<\/p>\n His role will include overseeing the Sundance Film Festival\u2019s transition to Boulder, Colorado, in 2027<\/a>, as well as managing the year-round Sundance Institute programs<\/a>, including artist labs, grants and fellowships.<\/p>\n A Hollywood veteran, Linde has worked across television and film for decades, cofounding Focus Features and overseeing numerous Oscar nominees and winners in his various roles. During Linde\u2019s time at Participant<\/a>, which shuttered in 2024, the company produced two best picture winners: \u201cSpotlight\u201d and \u201cGreen Book.\u201d He also produced \u201cArrival.\u201d<\/p>\n Sundance has been operating under an interim CEO, Amanda Kelso, since early 2024 when Joana Vicente<\/a> stepped down. Vicente had replaced Keri Putnam<\/a> in 2021. The Institute\u2019s most high-profile event, the annual Sundance Film Festival, is gearing up for its last edition in Park City, Utah which will kick off next week.<\/p>\n Ebs Burnough, board chair of the Sundance Institute, said in a statement that, \u201cDavid brings a rare combination of industry fluency, social cause management, and deep commitment to artists, positioning the organization to build on our legacy while advancing our mission for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" David Linde, the former chairman of Universal Pictures and CEO of Participant Media, has been named CEO of the Sundance Institute. The nonprofit organization said Thursday that Linde will assume the role on Feb. 17, after this year\u2019s festival concludes. \u201cI am honored to join Sundance Institute as CEO to steward an organization that is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2236775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[21741],"class_list":["post-2236774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Former-Universal-chair-David-Linde-named-CEO-of-Sundance-Institute.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2236774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2236776,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236774\/revisions\/2236776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2236775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2236774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2236774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2236774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}