GDC Festival of Gaming is shaking up its leadership team.
GDC president Nina Brown has left her role at Informa, according to GDC spokesperson Brian Rubin-Sowers, who said that the change took place “recently” but did not share more details about exactly when Brown had exited the company.
“The GDC team is incredibly grateful for all of Nina’s contributions, including the relaunch of the new GDC Festival of Gaming earlier this year,” Rubin-Sowers said in an emailed statement. “We’re committed to continuing to build on this reinvention after the significant changes we made to the Festival, and we’re excited to take our entire GDC community along on the journey to a bigger, better GDC Festival of Gaming each year.”
Brown, who had served as president of GDC since October 2025, joined Informa in 2022, holding vice president roles across media, entertainment, and gaming. Brown was the first-ever president of GDC; before she took on the role, Informa structured its leadership titles differently, with conferences like GDC managed by dedicated directors instead. Prior to joining Informa, Brown worked for decades as an experienced media and events executive, most recently at UBM and TheWrap. When reached for comment, Brown directed GamesBeat to contact Rubin-Sower for more information.
Following Brown’s exit, GDC Festival of Gaming will be led by Informa Festivals president of gaming and cybersecurity Suzy Pallett, per Rubin-Sower. Pallett has served as the president of Black Hat, Informa’s annual cybersecurity conference, since September 2025, and has been an executive vice president for Informa’s Money20/20 conference since 2024. Her first role at Informa was as the company’s group director for consumer, creative, and education between 2015 and 2018.
The shift in leadership at GDC Festival of Gaming reflects ongoing change at the annual game industry conference, both in terms of its identity and its attendance figures. The 2026 edition of the event officially rebranded from Game Developers Conference to GDC Festival of Gaming, with the organization describing its name change as a natural shift to better fit a changing game industry. Instead of pigeonholing itself as a conference specifically for game makers, GDC used the “Festival” moniker to frame itself as a holistic event for every type of industry stakeholder.
But GDC’s rebrand did not spark a significant influx of new attendees in 2026. This year’s iteration of the event, which ran between March 9-13 in San Francisco, brought in roughly 20,000 visitors, a steep decline from the conference’s 30,000 attendees in 2025. Although the conference was still a veritable Who’s Who of game industry professionals — with over 700 speaker sessions featuring 1,100 speakers and more than 300 exhibitors — it suffered from decreased international attendance due to the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as wariness around the Donald Trump administration’s immigration policies. The industry’s generally difficult economic situation, with many game makers facing layoffs and budget cuts, also contributed to GDC’s decrease in attendance in 2026.
The next iteration of GDC Festival of Gaming will take place in San Francisco’s Moscone Center between March 1-5, 2027.