On Friday, famed film director George Lucas and businesswoman Mellody Hobson, co-founders of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, announced that director and CEO Sandra Jackson-Dumont will step down April 1.
In the joint statement, Lucas and Hobson said that Jackson-Dumont’s decision to “move on” from the role stemmed from a “new organizational design” that splits the position into two: one responsible for “content direction,” which will be filled by Lucas himself, and CEO, to be taken up on an interim basis by Jim Gianopulos, the former chairman and CEO of 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures. A search for a permanent CEO is underway, though Gianopulos will stay on as a special advisor.
“Sandra’s transformative leadership over the past five years has been essential to preparing the museum for its opening,” the founders said in the statement. “Her dedication to advancing narrative art and realizing our vision has helped lay the groundwork to establish the museum as a vital cultural resource for Los Angeles and a future destination for those who will visit from around the world. Sandra has helped create an institution that will serve and inspire generations to come.”
Jackson-Dumont’s departure comes just months after the museum quietly delayed its opening from this year to 2026. The museum has now delayed its opening three times—once in response to Covid, then again in late 2022, which Jackson-Dumont said at the time was “to make sure the building goes through the proper readiness and remediation processes,” and lastly in December.
