Patricia Vance

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Patricia (Pat) Vance was appointed the third president of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in November 2002, replacing interim president, Marc Szafran. Vance is responsible for overseeing and enforcing the computer and video game industry's self-regulatory practices. This includes ensuring that video game consumers and parents have effective tools with which to make educated purchase decisions.

Upon taking the helm of the ESRB, Vance oversaw a re-tooling of the organization which kept it from remaining in the crosshairs of anti-games legislators, if only for a brief period of time. She is best known due to the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas debacle, where the publisher of the game failed to submit all of the content programmed into the product. The ESRB, funded by publishers, came under attack and began defending the process and system before all of the facts were in. The game was quickly re-rated from "M" to "AO" and retailers were notified via their trade association, the IEMA - who themselves were all away at their annual trade show, the Executive Summit, compounding the problem logistically. The incident became a flashpoint around which critics of the industry and the ratings board rallied and legislators across the country began introducing anti-games legislation.

Before joining the ESRB, Vance spent 18 years at Disney/ABC, with responsibility for leveraging ABC properties in the development and management of a broad range of new media and market initiatives. These initiatives included the Internet (ABC.com, ABCNEWS.com, Oscar.com, Oprah.com), interactive entertainment and educational software publishing (Creative Wonders, ABC Interactive, OT Sports, ABC News Interactive), direct response videocassette marketing, in-flight entertainment, home video and cable television.

Prior to ABC, Vance was responsible for planning movie acquisitions for The Movie Channel. She has also held senior management positions with The Princeton Review as Executive Vice President & General Manager of Admissions Services, and before that as President and CEO of HalfthePlanet.com, an online resource network for people with disabilities.