Katie Stern joins UBM to become new general manager of GDC

UBM, the parent company responsible for the Game Developers Conference events (GDC and VRDC) has announced Katie Stern as the new general manager for GDC.

Ster will work alongside current executive vice president of UBM, Simon Carless and Victoria Petersen, who has been head of many advisory boards for the conferences, will be taking up a Lead Conference Manager position.

Stern has worked previously with UBM when she co-founded the Designer of Things conference and now returns following her most recent position as director of event services at the Linux Foundation. Stern has also worked with Design Con and the Embedded Systems Conference, so Stern is no stranger to embracing tech communities and events for the industry.

"I couldn’t be more excited to be joining up with GDC to help the game industry and the event keep growing and flourishing,” said Stern. “I very much look forward to talking to the community about what’s next for the event over the next few years.”

"Having attended or been involved in organizing GDC for almost twenty years, I am keenly aware of the needs of the game development community, and I’m stoked to be working with Katie to tell the next chapter of GDC’s storied history," added Simon Carless.

Meanwhile, Victoria Petersen will be taking up the position of lead conference manager for both GDC and the VRDC events. GDC will return to the Moscone Centre in San Francisco on March 19th, 2018 through to March 23rd and submissions for speaking are open from August 28th. Submissions for the main conference are open until August 17th.