Valerie Van Galder is an accomplished, award winning and versatile executive with over 30years of publicity, film marketing, producing, journalism, social media and brand building experience. She is a life-long activist and philanthropist and runs Depressed Cake Shop®, a 501c3 that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and priceless awareness for mental health.

Having run marketing for the Hard Rock Cafe under founder Peter Morton, Van Galder moved into film as part of the founding marketing teams for both Fox Searchlight Pictures and Sony Screen Gems.   

She led marketing campaigns on films spanning “The Full Monty” to “Julie and Julia” during her tenures at Fox and Sony Pictures.  Notable titles under her watch as President of Marketing for Sony’s Columbia Pictures include “The DaVinci Code,” “Superbad,” “Spiderman 3,” and “Casino Royale.” 

She has worked with filmmakers such as Ang Lee, Spike Lee, Adam McKay, Judd Apatow, Ron Howard, Sam Raimi, Guy Ritchie, Bernardo Bertolucci, Mike Nichols, Tim Burton, Spike Jonze, Nora Ephron, Mark Forrester, Tony Scott, James Mangold, Scott Z. Burns, Jeff Nichols, Tom Ford, Craig Gillespie, John Wells, Seth Roger and Evan Goldberg, Travis Knight, J.A. Bayona, and Rob Marshall.

For the past decade she has consulted for clients such as Facebook, Lion’s Gate, Disney, Focus Features, Amazon, and Masterclass.  She worked with Matthew Vaughn on “Kingsman” 1 and 2, and was a producer on “Eddie the Eagle.’  She has also served as an adjunct professor at USC, teaching marketing to MFA candidates in the Stark Producing Program.

Van Galder was named Ad Age Marketer of the Year and won numerous Clio awards for creative campaigns on such films as “Adaptation,” “Premonition,” “Big Fish,” “Snatch “and “When a Monster Calls.”

She is on the Board of Directors for St. Joseph Center in Venice and is a member of the Motion Picture Academy.