Disney named Karandeep Anand as its first chief technology officer, giving Karandeep Anand a newly created job that takes effect Oct. 2. The move puts technology leadership at the center of the company’s operating plan, not just inside one division.
He will join Disney as senior executive vice president and CTO and report directly to Josh D’Amaro. In that role, Anand will oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms, product and engineering, with work spread across the company’s technology teams.
Josh D’Amaro backs Karandeep Anand
D’Amaro said Anand brings “a rare mix of experience across infrastructure, consumer technology and AI” and called him “an expert builder and strategist, technical and product-minded, with sharp instincts for what fans actually want.” He also said Anand shares Disney’s view that technology creates the most value when it helps people do their best work.
The hire also closes a gap in Disney’s structure. Adam Smith was its highest-ranking tech executive before moving into the chairman role for direct-to-consumer for Disney Entertainment, after Disney hired him in 2024 as chief product and technology officer for Disney Entertainment and. Joe Earley now serves in the newly created role of president of Disney Entertainment Television franchise and content strategy.
Character.AI and Disney
Anand arrives from Character.AI, where he was CEO. About a year ago, Disney accused Character.AI of blatantly infringing its copyrights and sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that Disney characters be removed from the platform, and Character.AI complied. Disney said a number of Character.AI’s technical team are expected to join Disney as well.
That sequence makes the appointment more than a routine executive hire. Disney is bringing in a leader from a company it had recently challenged over copyright while also importing technical staff from the same place, a sign that the company wants speed on product and engineering without waiting for a slow rebuild. The result is a cleaner chain of command around technology just as Disney pushes harder on company-wide modernization.
Microsoft, Meta, Brex
Before Character.AI, Anand was president and chief product officer of Brex, and before that he held leadership roles at Meta’s Facebook, most recently as VP of ads and business products. He also spent 15 years at Microsoft in senior product and engineering roles and was part of the team that built Azure.
For Disney, the practical next step is simple: Anand starts Oct. 2, and the company has now placed enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms, product and engineering under one executive who already knows how to move across consumer tech and large-scale systems. The strategy is to make technology a company-wide operating tool, not a side function.
