Disney Adds 2 New EVP’s To Its Technology Leadership Team
Just ahead of the launch of the new streaming version of ESPN, Disney has announced that it has hired two new executives for its leadership team, with Tony Donohoe and Erin Teague joining the technology division.
Tony Donohoe has previously worked for thirty years across a variety of businesses, most recently as the senior vice president of technology at Walmart, and he also worked as the chief technology officer for Expedia and SoFi, along with a technology leadership role at JPMorgan Chase.
He will be working as the executive vice president of ad platforms, where he will work closely with Disney Advertising chief Rita Ferro on growth and innovation for the technology division.
While Erin Teague, will become the executive vice president of product management in September, where she will oversee a team that will focus on building user-centric products across a variety of areas such as artificial intelligence, sports, media and entertainment, social media and augmented and virtual reality. Erin has previously worked at Google, Yahoo, Twitter and Morgan Stanley.
Disney Entertainment and ESPN’s chief product & technology officer, Adam Smith, said in a statement regarding the new hirings:
“Part of what makes Disney distinctive is the combination of creativity and technology. As Product & Technology at Disney and ESPN continue to pursue our vision, we’re driving new ideas, transforming our products. Erin and Tony bring technical firepower, deep expertise and dynamic vision and will be a key part of our success driving innovation and user-centric products.”
Disney is going to be making some major changes to its streaming services, with the launch of the new ESPN platform on Thursday and it will also be merging Hulu into Disney+ in 2026. Disney is also going to be rebranding the Star hub on Disney+ internationally to Hulu later this Fall.
There is a lot of work already underway on improving the Disney+ app, with new features and a more personalised home page, to encourage more engagement and to reduce churn.
These new hirings are bound to have a major impact on what’s going on behind the scenes at Disney and could hopefully lead to some changes down the road to make Disney’s technology offerings even better.
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