LogInTon Roosendaal's role will be passed to COO Francesco Siddi.
Andrey Lebrov
At today's Blender Conference keynote, Ton Roosendaal announced he would step down as the company's chairman and CEO on January 1, 2026.
Blender's COO Francesco Siddi will become the new CEO, while Blender Foundation's board positions will also include Sergey Sharybin (head of development), Dalai Felinto (head of product), and Fiona Cohen (head of operations). Roosendaal himself will move to the newly established Blender Foundation supervisory board.
Roosendaal started the development of Blender in 1993 and created Blender Foundation in 2002. Siddi has been with the company since 2013, "functioning in many roles including as animator, web developer, pipeline developer, producer and managing Blender's industry relations," so, hopefully, the switch will go smoothly and won't bring any surprises.
"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."
Recently, Blender also revealed in its financial report that the organization operated at a loss in 2024, planning to address the issue by finding new corporate donors, encouraging more small donations through better communication, and maintaining a buffer of three months' cash flow just in case.
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