VP, AI & Engineering

Job Summary

VP, AI & Engineering

The Office of Technology Enablement (OTE) AI Practice is Disney's AI acceleration team—transforming high‑value opportunities into deployed capabilities across Studios, Parks, ESPN, and every Disney segment. We discover breakthrough AI applications, validate them through hands‑on prototyping, and scale proven solutions company‑wide.

The Vice President of Artificial Intelligence and Software Engineering is responsible for overseeing the development, implementation, and optimization of cutting‑edge software solutions and AI technologies. This role drives innovation, enhances product offerings, and supports business growth while building the company’s AI capabilities. The VP will lead the AI Core Team, manage the Studio Machine Learning Center (MLC), and act as a liaison with enterprise AI partners to ensure alignment and collaboration across the organization.

• Provide strategic leadership and direction to technical teams, establishing clear goals, priorities, and objectives aligned with the company’s technology roadmaps and business strategies.
• Prioritize and manage a portfolio of AI projects, effectively balancing budgets, and internal and external priorities in coordination with technology and business teams from across all segments of TWDC.
• Establish and communicate long‑term vision for the use of AI technologies by TWDC, ensuring alignment with overall company / segment objectives as well as market trends.
• Develop and maintain an enterprise inventory of business needs and map potential AI tools across a broad set of use cases to facilitate matchmaking with third‑party partners. Collaborate with Business Development to thoroughly evaluate partner tools and capabilities, ensuring alignment with company use cases to inform third‑party targets and deals.
• Collaborate with company executives and technical partners to demonstrate the potential of AI technologies, communicating a technical vision, roadmap, and project status to foster trust and alignment with organizational goals.
• Serve as a liaison between the segment technology teams and business executives to harness the collective AI expertise and resources of the company to support segment and enterprise initiatives.
• Support development of business and cost models to quantify the efficiency and ROI of all projects.
• Stay abreast of industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices in software engineering and AI, leveraging this knowledge to drive continuous learning and technology adoption and capabilities within teams.
• Monitor and evaluate portfolio and project performance, tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and providing regular updates to senior leadership on the impact of business development initiatives.
• Oversee the design, development, and validation of AI solutions that align with technical and operational requirements, uphold quality standards, and address the needs of various business use‑cases.
• Adapt and scale both internal, commercial, and open source and external AI models to meet Disney's highest priority business objectives.
• Drive and execute roadmaps, engaging closely with stakeholders to take AI projects from inception to delivery, while building the technical capabilities of segment AI teams.
• Oversee project timelines, resource distribution, and budget management for the AI Core Team to ensure efficient project completion, cost‑effectiveness, and alignment with organizational objectives. This includes taking a portfolio management approach to optimizing the staffing mix (employees and third parties) to balance business goals, technical capabilities, and costs.
• Develop and oversee program plans that ensure effective feedback loops between end‑users and designers to continuously customize AI models to meet Disney needs / use cases.
• Actively manage stakeholder expectations to balance focus on project budgets and timelines with the inherently iterative nature of tech innovation and customization.
• Develop and execute efforts to build internal AI capabilities across all business units of the Walt Disney company.
• Consult with Disney partners to define AI policies and…