The Walt Disney Company Sets Leadership Team for Expanded Disney Entertainment Segment

BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 16, 2026--

Dana Walden, incoming president and chief creative officer of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS), today announced the new leadership structure for Disney Entertainment, bringing together the company’s streaming, film, and television businesses along with its growing games and digital entertainment division. Consumers today want to engage with Disney’s storytelling and characters in a multitude of ways – whether on Disney+, in theaters, or through the digital games they love to play. With this unified approach, Disney can deliver the world’s most beloved entertainment to fans across the many ways they choose to enjoy it.

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“The strength of Disney has always been the emotional connection between our stories and the people who love them,” said Walden. “As fans engage with Disney across more formats and platforms than ever before, we are bringing together the full power of our creative businesses to build an even more connected experience for audiences. I’m very fortunate to work alongside such a passionate and talented group of leaders who are driven by the joy of storytelling, and I’m especially excited to work with our new CEO Josh D’Amaro as we enter this next chapter together.”

As previously announced, Walden will become president and chief creative officer of The Walt Disney Company on March 18. In this new role – a first for the enterprise – Walden will report directly to Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro.

Walden’s new senior leadership team is as follows:

Alan Bergman, chairman of Disney Entertainment, Studios, will continue overseeing all aspects of the company’s world-class film studios including production, marketing and distribution, and maintaining shared oversight of Direct to Consumer alongside Walden.

Joe Earley and Adam Smith will become co-presidents of Direct to Consumer, sharing responsibility for strategy and financial performance across Disney+ and Hulu, reporting to Walden and Bergman. Earley will also serve as head of content strategy for Direct to Consumer, while Smith continues as chief product and technology officer for Disney Entertainment, and for ESPN, where he will continue to report to ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro.

Debra OConnell will assume the newly created role of chairman of Disney Entertainment Television, overseeing the television brands, including ABC Entertainment, Disney Branded Television, Hulu Originals, National Geographic Content and creative for 20th Television and 20th Television Animation. She will also continue to oversee ABC News and the ABC Owned Television Stations.

Sean Shoptaw, EVP, Games and Digital Entertainment, along with his organization, will now join Disney Entertainment, reporting to Walden. Shoptaw oversees the company’s Games business and its collaboration with Epic Games, developing a Disney universe connected to Fortnite, and brings deep insight into the central role that games play in today’s entertainment landscape. By combining the power of its creative engines and games, Disney can bring immersive new ways to tell stories to audiences across platforms in even more engaging ways.

John Landgraf, Chairman of FX, will continue to report directly to Walden.

Asad Ayaz, Disney’s Chief Marketing and Brand Officer, leads teams across the company’s business segments. Ayaz will report to incoming Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro and Walden.

Dana Walden, The Walt Disney Company

MADRID (AP) — Spain’s monarch said Monday the Spanish conquest of the Americas included “much abuse” and “ethical controversies,” striking a conciliatory tone amid a yearslong row between Spain and Mexico over colonial era abuses committed by the Spanish crown centuries ago.

King Felipe VI made the remarks while speaking with Mexico’s ambassador to Spain, Quirino Ordaz, during a visit to a museum exhibition in Madrid about the role of women in pre-Columbian Mexico.

About the centuries-old Spanish conquest, Felipe said: “There are things that, when we study them, we come to know them, and well, with our current values, they obviously cannot make us feel proud.”

“But they must be understood in their proper context, not with excessive moral presentism, but with an objective and rigorous analysis,” he said.

The Bourbon king’s symbolic remarks came after years of a diplomatic spat between Spain and Mexico over the Mexican government’s demands that Spain apologize for its 1519-1521 conquest of Mexico, which resulted in the death of a large part of the country’s pre-Hispanic population.

Colonial Spain ruled one of the largest empires in history with colonial holdings spanning 5 continents at its peak between the 16th and 18th centuries. That included much of Central and South America.

Mexico City was the seat of Spain’s colonial power in the Americas after the Spanish and their Indigenous allies toppled the Aztecs in 1521. Mexico City was built over the ruins of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.

In 2019, former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador demanded that Spain “publicly and officially” recognize the abuses committed during the conquest of Mexico in a letter sent to the Spanish king and Pope Francis. Spain refused to do so, which soured relations between the two governments.

In 2024, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum did not invite Felipe to her inauguration over the palace’s refusal to issue a formal apology, a move that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called “unacceptable.” Spain refused to send a representative to Sheinbaum’s inauguration.

But tensions appeared to thaw last fall when Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares acknowledged the “pain and injustice” suffered by Mexico’s Indigenous population at the hands of Spanish conquerors. Those comments came at the inauguration of the same museum exhibit attended Monday by the king.

“There has been pain, pain and injustice toward the indigenous peoples to whom this exhibition is dedicated,” Albares said at the time.

Sheinbaum recognized the foreign minister’s remarks as a first step, saying then that “this is the first time that a Spanish government authority has spoken of regretting the injustice.”

Felipe’s comments do not constitute a formal apology by Spain’s royal palace. Sheinbaum on Monday said she would look into his remarks.

FILE - Spanish King Felipe attends commemorations marking the 10th anniversary of the proclamation of Spain's King Felipe VI at Royal Palace in Madrid, June 19, 2024. (Juan Medina/Pool Photo via AP, File)