David Hatkoff is a cultural strategist and executive whose career has focused on building organizations, partnerships, and programs at the intersection of storytelling, culture, and community. He was named to the 2025 Out100 for cultural leadership and LGBTQ+ visibility, and received the 2024 Gay City News Impact Award for cultural impact.

For seven years, David served as Executive Director of NewFest, where he helped transform the organization into the largest LGBTQ+ film festival in the United States. During his tenure, NewFest more than quadrupled its budget and staff; expanded into year-round programming; partnered with studios and streamers including Netflix, HBO, A24, Neon, and Amazon; worked with brands including Hyundai, Hinge, JPMorganChase, and Converse; and helped direct more than $1 million to queer filmmakers through artist development programs.

Before NewFest, David spent 11 years in senior leadership at New York’s Tony Award-winning Signature Theatre, where he was part of a period of significant institutional growth and expansion, including the opening of the 75,000-square-foot Frank Gehry-designed Pershing Square Signature Center.

David founded The Queer Agenda to bring that experience to a new kind of venture, connecting storytellers, entertainment companies, brands, cultural institutions, funders, and audiences to create new opportunities and lasting value across queer storytelling, culture, and business. Through strategy, partnerships, programming, and original initiatives, he is interested in building new models for how queer culture is supported, experienced, and sustained.

Originally from Los Angeles, David is a former competitive tennis player, and spends his free time seeing theater, reading, and consuming as much content as humanly possible. He lives in Brooklyn with his dog, Molly.