PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY | EXAMPLES | WORK EXPERIENCE | CREATIVE

BUILDING A CROSS-ORGANIZATIONAL COALITION FROM SCRATCH

DISNEY+ AD-SUPPORTED SUBSCRIPTION TIER (Domestic) | 2022

Program Brief

• Situation
• In late October of 2021, Disney Technology's Ad Platforms division was brought into a large-scale effort to change the Disney Plus subscription model from a single offering to a series of tiered models for subscribers to select from, modeled after Hulu's subscription offerings at the time
• One of those tiers was to be an ads-supported tier utilizing the Ad Platforms systems to manage the entire ads ecosphere and asset serving logic
• Two major organizational units were involved; Disney Technology (housing the Ad Platforms division) and Disney Streaming (housing Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus)
• These units historically did not work together very often, these were extremely siloed orgs with an ocean of silence between them at the delivery level
• Hulu's technology prior to its acquisition by Disney had been very interconnected between Ads and the Streaming teams
• Hulu's split into the two separate orgs during its merger into Disney necessitated continued coordination and collaboration between ad-serving and content-streaming units as Hulu's core advertising technology became Disney's Advertising and Data Platforms group
• This program was well underway within the Disney Streaming (DS) organization, including planning for the ad-supported tier, by the time the Ad Platforms division was brought into the discussion
• Task
• Introduce myself to the current DS program leadership team and ensure the Ads team is represented in all coordination around ad serving planning and delivery
• Act as the primary liaison for the Ad Platforms division throughout this initiative (domestic and international efforts)
• Coordinate with Ad Platform delivery teams as needed for prioritizing work and scheduling appropriate resources for all phases of this initiative
• Meet all publicly announced launch dates with no slippage
• Actions
• Determine who to coordinate with
• At the start, the program did not have any centralized or direct PMO leadership; Disney Streaming was directly driving from the C-level through their Engineering Directors
• Initially I reached out to former Hulu contacts now residing within Disney Streaming to gather names and go door to door introducing myself to various Product and Engineering leaders involved in the program
• Ensure Ads has a seat at the table
• Culturally, Disney Streaming was reluctant to involve outside orgs in their delivery planning, it took time to fully integrate into the planning discussions
• Ultimately Disney Streaming's PMO became involved and centralized project command
• I co-led the ad-supported tier initiative with the DS lead TPM, leading weekly Heads Of State coordination meetings across all delivery teams from both organizations
• Understand the overall initiative; expectations, deliverables, timelines, etc
• Understand Ads' place within the initiative
• Coordinate with Ads' delivery teams to identify interdependencies, outline timelines, and build our program plan
• Result
• Within the span of two months we went from being completely disconnected and outside of the initiative to co-leading the effort and forging a partnership with regular coordination between delivery-level teams in two separated orgs
• Three separate PMOs were involved in the effort, with me as co-lead with my DS partner (Technology's Global PMO, DS' PMO, and Disney's EPMO)
• We built a fully interconnected program plan, including coordination with QA teams for proper validations before launch, and delivered on time with only a very few small issues popping up to address at launch

Business Impact

• The ad-supported tier succeeded at maintaining/increasing subscriptions that might otherwise have left the service in the face of the impending price increase for the main Disney Plus subscription tier
• As of October 2023, 54% of new subscribers chose the ad-supported tier
• As of the end of 2024, 55% of new subscribers chose the ad-supported tier
• In total between both ad-supported and ad-free tiers Disney Streaming had 104 million average monthly viewers at the end of 2024
• Additionally, the ad-supported tier became a new revenue stream
• Disney Plus generated $10.4 billion revenue in 2024 (combined ad-supported and ad-free tiers), 21.6% increase over 2023
• Specific ad-tier revenue data is not public for 2023 or 2024, extrapolating a comment by Bob Iger in late 2024 suggests it is near $4 billion for 2024
• Cross-organizational communication pathways and project management frameworks were in place for furture Technology/DS collaborative efforts (Disney Plus ad-supported tier for international subscribers, for example)

Approach

This was tough due to still being a new entity in the organization and having no existing structure or protocol for this kind of coordination. There were several stumbles along the way.

• Reach out via networking to identify who in the Disney Streaming organization was involved with or managing the initiative
• Introduce myself and the Ad Platforms organization as a whole, describing our role in the new DMED business segment, and present why our involvement was mission critical to the delivery of this launch
• Work patiently through initial resistance and politics, recognizing that culture is separate from individuals, and people on the ground want to succeed and collaborate
• Evangelize the benefit of centralizing initiative management through a proper PMO structure, alleviating the complexity and often confusion that comes from self-managing decentralized teams
• Bring program rigor paired with approachability and a strong desire for collaboration in order to overcome territorial biases and defensiveness
• Keep all communications clear and fully transparent in order to earn and maintain trust
• Lean on local team and division leaders for their expertise and partnership in order to promote collaborative teamwork and cement relationships
• Lean on organization leaders as needed to help establish coordination
• When necessary, remind team leaders of the advertising revenue at risk if coordination broke down or implementation failed

Communication and Reporting

• Lots of 1:1 initial handshakes and recurring syncs in order to establish and maintain partnerships
• Established weekly check-ins across all delivery teams, run as scrum-of-scrum sessions
• Regular status report presentations and report slides for the Ad Platforms division, Disney Technology Global PMO, and Disney Streaming PMO

Challenges

• The biggest challenge was getting a foot in the door
• Advertising and Data Platforms was a new division, a remnant of Hulu's Ad Platform now part of Disney Technology
• There was no existing communication or coordination path between Disney Technology and Disney Streaming ground teams
• Cultural challenges with isolationism, territorialism, and political distrust
• The initiative did not at first have a centralized program leader, it was being managed through the DS office of the CTO
• Building trust and collaboration with delivery teams that were not used to partnering with outside organizations
• Building a project framework for disparate organizations to utilize and coordinate through

Key Learnings

• Organizational scale is important; giant corporations move at a different pace than more nimble medium size companies
• Established, old-school culture can be a challenging beast to overcome even when individuals are united and aligned towards a common goal
• Persistence, paired with a collaborative and approachable posture, proved critical to earning trust