Blender Foundation announces new board and executive director

At today’s Blender Conference keynote, Ton Roosendaal announced to step down as chairman and Blender CEO per January 1st 2026, passing on his roles to Blender COO Francesco Siddi. New Blender Foundation board positions will also include Sergey Sharybin (head of development), Dalai Felinto (head of product) and Fiona Cohen (head of operations).

Francesco Siddi has been part of the Blender organization since 2012, functioning in many roles including as animator, web developer, pipeline developer, producer and managing Blender’s industry relations.

“We’ve been preparing for this since 2019,” said Roosendaal, “I am very proud to have such a wonderfully talented young team around me to bring our free and open source project into the next decade.”

Ton Roosendaal will move to the newly established BF supervisory board.

More details will be provided later this year.

Amsterdam, 17-09-2025

Blender Foundation