Orit Michiel to Lead ESRB After Patricia Vance’s More Than 20 Years as President

The Entertainment Software Rating Board has named Orit Michiel as its next president, a change announced on Oct. 28, 2026.¹ Michiel is scheduled to take up the position on November 2, 2026, so the announcement precedes the start of her tenure.¹ She will succeed Patricia Vance, who is retiring after holding the presidency for more than 20 years.¹ The appointment changes the person at the head of an organization whose work includes game and app ratings, advertising rules and privacy support.¹ The dates mark an announced transition followed by the effective start of Michiel’s leadership, rather than a change that began on the announcement date.¹ For parents and companies using ESRB’s services, the stated work areas remain ratings, advertising standards and privacy practices under the incoming president.¹

The role places Michiel in charge of ESRB’s age and content rating system, as well as enforcement of advertising and marketing guidelines.¹ Her responsibilities also include the Privacy Certified program, which is intended to help companies put responsible privacy practices into effect.¹ ESRB independently assigns age and content ratings to video games and mobile apps, and it describes itself as a nonprofit, self-regulatory body.¹ Its work therefore combines rating decisions with industry guideline enforcement and support for companies’ privacy practices.¹ The remit reaches beyond assigning ratings: it also covers how advertising guidelines are enforced and how companies are supported in adopting responsible privacy practices.¹ Players and families are affected by the rating information, while companies are the direct audience for the Privacy Certified program’s help with privacy practices.¹

Michiel’s broader assignment is to lead the video game industry’s efforts to give parents information for making decisions about games and apps.¹ The duties named for her presidency cover ratings, family resources, advertising standards and ESRB’s privacy certification work.¹ The rating system concerns both age guidance and content, while marketing guideline enforcement is another part of the job.¹ These functions are presented as parts of the same institutional remit, rather than as a change to ESRB’s stated purpose.¹ For parents, the practical focus described is information that can help them decide what games and apps are appropriate for their children; family resources and ratings are among the named tools.¹ Advertising standards and privacy certification address separate parts of ESRB’s work, extending the role beyond the information parents use to choose gameplay experiences.¹

The appointment also gives Michiel a role outside ESRB: she will join the International Age Rating Coalition’s Board of Directors.¹ IARC supplies age ratings internationally for games and apps distributed digitally.¹ That work concerns digitally delivered products, while ESRB’s stated rating remit covers video games and mobile apps.¹ The announcement identifies the two bodies’ work areas but does not provide figures for the number of products, companies or families reached.¹ The distinction is in the described scope: IARC provides global ratings for digitally delivered games and apps, while ESRB independently rates video games and mobile apps.¹ Michiel’s board role therefore places her at both an organization with an independent rating remit and a coalition focused on global ratings for digital delivery.¹

Michiel brings more than two decades of work involving age ratings, content standards and children’s safety.¹ At Netflix, she was Director, Content Policy, and led the company’s global Content Policy team.¹ Her Netflix work included developing a classification and maturity-rating system for global use.¹ Those details establish experience in content policy and rating-system development, while the announced ESRB responsibilities specify the work she will oversee there.¹ Her more-than-two-decade background spans the same broad areas of age ratings and content standards that feature in the ESRB role, alongside children’s safety.¹ The Netflix example adds a concrete comparison: she led a global policy team and developed a global rating system before taking responsibility for ESRB’s rating and guideline functions.¹

Before joining Netflix, Michiel spent 13 years at the Motion Picture Association.¹ There she served as Vice President, Legal Affairs, and chaired the Classification and Rating Appeals Board.¹ She led a revision of the U.S. motion picture industry’s rating and advertising guidelines.¹ That undertaking involved industry partners, regulators and international ratings bodies, and addressed classification of content and protection of children.¹ The 13-year Motion Picture Association period is one component of the longer-than-two-decades experience described for her career, not its full duration.¹ Her work there connected legal affairs and appeals with a guidelines overhaul involving several kinds of partners, experience relevant to a presidency that includes guideline enforcement.¹

Michiel began her career in legal practice and holds a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law.¹ She also earned a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA.¹ Her earlier association work included both legal-affairs responsibilities and leadership of an appeals board dealing with classification and ratings.¹ The available career details describe her roles and education, but give no additional measures of the scale or outcomes of her past work.¹ Together, the stated degrees show legal and political-science education, while the career record includes legal practice and later leadership in classification and rating work.¹ Those credentials and roles provide background to her appointment, but the listed facts do not quantify how many people or products her earlier work covered.¹

Strauss Zelnick characterized Michiel as a strong selection for the presidency, pointing to her entertainment experience and familiarity with classification systems.¹ He also said ESRB would keep working to provide parents with clear, dependable information.¹ Zelnick said the organization would maintain its guidelines and practices as part of that continuing commitment.¹ The announcement does not identify Zelnick’s role, so his assessment is presented here only with the name supplied in the release.¹ His stated reasons for backing the choice relate to Michiel’s experience and classification knowledge, while the continuing commitment he described is directed toward parents and industry guidelines.¹ That framing emphasizes continuity in ESRB’s stated work even as the organization prepares for a new president.¹

Michiel said parents should have useful information when choosing play experiences for their children.¹ She said she was honored to take the lead and intended to build on ESRB’s existing work as games and play habits change.¹ Those remarks sit alongside the organization’s stated role in assigning ratings, applying advertising guidelines and supporting responsible privacy practices.¹ The transition is thus described through a new president, a defined set of responsibilities and a commitment to continue ESRB’s existing work; the announcement supplies no numerical measure of a change in that work.¹ Her comments identify parents as the people who need useful information, while her promise to build on existing work signals continuity as games and play habits evolve.¹ The stated responsibilities indicate that continuity includes ratings, advertising and privacy functions, rather than ratings alone.¹