DigiBC Appoints Former Disney VP Howard Donaldson As President

DigiBC - the Digital Media and Wireless Association of British Columbia - has appointed Howard Donaldson as its new president. Howard Donaldson was formerly operations VP for Disney Interactive Studios, and the co-founder of Propaganda Games, which was closed earlier this year. He was also originally the chief financial officer at EA Canada. Talking to Vancouver news site The Straight, Donaldson noted that he will continue the company's focus on digital and wireless. "The wireless side is becoming more important as our world becomes more mobile" he said. "This is an opportunity for me to spend the next several years helping the industry in an era when it’s very competitive, and I think we need to do a better job promoting the industry and profiling our companies here." The industry veteran will take over from current president Michael Bidu later this month. Bidu will remain on the DigiBC board, but is looking to move to the private sector. Donaldson also discussed the state of the Vancouver video game industry, explaining, "Digital media in general is growing at 12 percent a year. The overall video games industry on all platforms is projected to grow at 10 percent a year. Which is twice as much as all other media and entertainment sectors. So there’s a huge opportunity." The news comes as the Canadian Games Conference, which Donaldson is on the advisory board for, is set to take place at the Vancouver Convention Centre on May 19-20, with lectures from the likes of Paul Hossack of EA, Karl Schmidt of THQ and Kris Piotrowski of Capybara Games. The conference will feature content from "Best of GDC" (part of the UBM TechWeb Game Network, as is this website), bringing top GDC lectures from worldwide to the Canadian audience for the first time.