Editors Guild Chief Cathy Repola To Step Down After 32-Year Tenure At IATSE Local
Katie Campione
Cathy Repola's tenure as National Executive Director of the Editors Guild will end in January
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Deadline
Cathy Repola is stepping down as the National Executive Director of the Motion Picture Editors Guild.

Serving in her current role since 2016, her 32-year tenure at IATSE Local 700 will be finished at the end of January 2025, she announced Monday.

“Working for the Guild has been an extremely rewarding career,” Repola said in a statement Monday. “I have always had a profound commitment to the Guild and our mission and a deep affinity for our members. Now, I have reached a place in my life where I want to shift my priorities to my loved ones and friends.”

Guild President Alan Heim will be appointing a search committee to find Repola’s replacement, with the final candidate subject to approval by the Guild’s Board of Directors.

“Cathy has been an indispensable leader for the Guild these past eight years,” Heim said in a statement of his own. “She has helped lead us successfully through some of the most hard-fought and intricate contract negotiations in our history, and through many challenging times, and done it all with remarkable courage and grace. Whoever succeeds her will have some very big shoes to fill.”

Repola’s time at the helm of the Editors Guild has not come without controversy. She had a a very public falling out with IATSE President Matt Loeb back in 2018, when he unceremoniously booted her off the P&H Plans’ board after she was the only IATSE local leader to oppose the ratification of the union’s film and TV contract. She returned to the board in June last year.

In an interview with Local 700’s CineMontage Magazine after her reappointment, she declined to comment on that situation, only saying: “Yes, I was removed in October 2018 and I don’t want to rehash all of that. Now that I have been reappointed, I will only say I think that IA President Matthew Loeb reappointing me was the appropriate thing to do.”

The Motion Picture Editors Guild is the largest union representing post-production professionals in the entertainment business with around 9,000 members across Los Angeles and New York including picture editors, sound editors, mixers and other job categories.