Disney Creates New Chief Marketing and Brand Officer Role, Names Asad Ayaz

28 days ago in "The Walt Disney Company"

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Walt Disney Company headquarters in Burbank, California

Posted: Wednesday January 14, 2026 4:30pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Disney has established a new enterprise marketing organization and named Asad Ayaz as Chief Marketing and Brand Officer. The move consolidates marketing teams across Disney's businesses to create a more connected approach to consumer engagement.

The new Chief Marketing and Brand Officer role reports directly to CEO Bob Iger and to segment chairs across Disney's business units. The enterprise marketing organization will align marketing teams from Disney Entertainment, Disney Experiences, and ESPN.

Ayaz brings over 20 years of experience at Disney to the role. He most recently served as President of Marketing for The Walt Disney Studios and led marketing for Disney+. Since 2023, he has held the title of Chief Brand Officer, overseeing company-wide brand efforts, alliances, and events.

"As our businesses have evolved, it's clear that we need a company-wide role that ensures brand consistency and allows consumers today to seamlessly interact with our wonderful products and experiences," said Bob Iger.

Disney Entertainment Co-Chairs Alan Bergman and Dana Walden, Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D'Amaro, and ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro issued a joint statement praising Ayaz's "exceptional creative leadership with strong strategic and operational prowess."

The restructure underlines Disney's effort to modernize its marketing approach and create more cohesive brand experiences across its entertainment, experiences, and sports properties.

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BrianLo22 days ago

The goalposts were set a 2-3 years ago in conversations with you both and they’ve all been exceeded. The 2023 position was that it couldn’t be profitable, the 2024 position was that it would be meagrely wandering between 100-200M to a loss between various quarters. It’s subtlety placed, but based on their forward guidance of an operating margin of 10% of DTC for this fiscal year… By July that puts it on track for 2.4B of income (600Mx4) over four quarters. We’re really not far out from that turning into a billion a quarter. Recall the ultimate remaining goalposts are that it could not recuperate the upstart costs (it will) or that it also could never overtake linear (it will).

monothingie27 days ago

Sure it is. It's just the latest cope to justify something that cost billions to bring to market that has failed to deliver. New product, cost a fraction to develop, has just as many subscribers and is more profitable than D+. Sounds like someone picked the wrong business model for DTC.

MisterPenguin27 days ago

Reciting the actual history of the rise of streaming services isn't goal post moving. Goal post moving would to include in the group being talked about some other thing that doesn't belong to that group, for example, if you would mention a free ad-supported service to muddy the waters. Oh, wait...

monothingie27 days ago

Price Increases...Many of them. Hulu/ESPN/D+ all count as unique subscribers. Massive number of wholesale accounts. So that's the goal post move now. Netflix was there first therefore everyone else is behind. Never mind that the product sucks and that most people on the platform watch Bluey instead of the ridiculously expensive slop that's put out. Now explain Tubi being just as big in terms of views and subs and is newer than all of the above.

MisterPenguin27 days ago

Funny how they can have subs and revenue go up while having a lesser percentage of viewing. It's almost as if Netflix became super popular because being the first to offer streaming; and almost as if every other service (Apple+, Amazon+, Paramount+, Peacock+) which were a few years behind Disney and Netflix in getting into world wide streaming have finally caught up. But if this can be construed as "Disney Bad!" Sure. Go with that.

monothingie27 days ago

He's doing Great! But in all fairness to him, you can't put lipstick on a pig. With the turds Disney has been turning out over the past 5 years, there's only so much marketing can do...except spend lots of money.

HauntedPirate28 days ago

Stumbling upwards. Studios marketing has been, arguably, below average for years. So the answer, obviously, is to promote the marketing chief to a newly-created position overseeing all marketing efforts. Maybe parks marketing will suck even more now? *shudder*