Disney is shuffling its streaming commerce and data teams as a top executive exits.
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Ajay Arora, Disney’s SVP of product management and engineering, is leaving the company on April 30, product and tech chief Adam Smith told employees late last week in a memo obtained by Business Insider.
Arora “has decided to pursue a new opportunity” after nearly five years, Smith told Disney and ESPN product and tech staffers. The product exec led teams overseeing commerce, growth, and account management for Disney streaming.
Before joining Disney, Arora was the director of product innovation and growth at Netflix for four years. He was also a VP of product management at the image-sharing site Imgur and Amazon’s Audible.
As Arora steps down, Smith said Disney is reorganizing its Commerce, Data, and Identity team to integrate its work “more tightly” into other parts of the business.
The Commerce & Identity Product group will join the product management team to help make streaming “the digital centerpiece of Disney’s relationship with fans.”
The Data Product & Engineering group will move under the ads platform EVP, Tony Donohoe, to work more closely with his organization.
Read the full memo from Disney’s product and tech chief about Arora’s departure and the associated reorganization here:
Team,I wanted to share the news that Ajay Arora has decided to pursue a new opportunity outside of Disney. His last day will be April 30th. Please join me in thanking Ajay for 5 years of significant contributions to our business and wishing him well in what comes next.With his departure, we’re taking the opportunity to integrate Commerce, Data and Identity more tightly into the organizational structures driving our products and businesses.Commerce & Identity Product: As we work to make DTC the digital centerpiece of Disney’s relationship with fans, we will move the Commerce and Identity teams to join our Product Management team and DTC Streaming Alliance. This aligns decision making under a single product organization and matches the structure of our engineering teams. Georgina Hill (Commerce Product), Chuck Mortimer (Identity Product), and Ana Pavlovic (Messaging) will now report to Erin Teague.Data Product & Engineering: Atlas and related data efforts are giving us a sharper, data-driven view of our relationship with the consumer, and will benefit from sitting closer to our ad platforms and monetization engine. To drive this, Tony Donohoe will add Data Product and Engineering to his remit. Alek Zdziarski (Data Engineering) and Romit Mehta (Data Product, interim) will report to Tony Donohoe.With these changes, we will also fold the CDI Alliance into other existing alliances. We are finalizing the details of this and will share updates as quickly as possible.Please reach out to me, your leadership team, or your HR partner with questions.Thanks,Adam
