Kareem Daniel’s career has been impressive.
As a child, Kareem Daniel would spend hours at his local mall’s comic book store studying headlines, sometimes with his mother waiting patiently in the car.
On Monday, he rose to a prominent position within the dominant force in the tradition of comics – and many other forms of entertainment – Walt Disney Co.
The native of Chicago’s southern neighborhood edged out his colleagues to become the head of a new media and entertainment distribution group. In this role, he will make decisions about pricing, marketing and how consumers connect to Disney +, the company’s flagship effort to tackle Netflix Inc. in the rapidly growing video industry. online.
The 46-year-old executive owes his rise in large part to his relationship with new Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who said he first hired him as an intern years ago, when Daniel was in high school.
“He’s a brilliant executive who has incredible objectivity when it comes to factual decision-making,” Chapek said in an interview. “This positions him perfectly to be the right guy to make decisions. Not because there is a legacy of the company, but because it’s good for today.”
Chapek, who took over from longtime Disney CEO Bob Iger in February, quickly put his mark on the entertainment giant – even as the coronavirus pandemic crushed its theme parks, films and sports activities live. In August, Chapek said he intended to accelerate the company’s push towards streaming, which is booming with so many families stuck at home. A reorganization he announced on Monday underscores the change by aligning all of the company’s television and film activities into one central effort.
Daniel’s career has been impressive. After Stanford University, where he obtained electrical engineering degrees and an MBA, he worked for three years at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. before joining Disney in strategic planning in 2007. Daniel worked in the film studio of society and in consumer products.
In 2017, he took over the company’s Imagineers, the theme park designers who create the fantastic Disney rides and attractions. Under his leadership, Disney presented two Star Wars-themed lands in California and Florida. He also oversaw the construction of a Marvel-themed land set to open soon in California.
“He has experience in many areas of the business and whatever role he’s been in he’s done an outstanding job,” said Chapek, who led the theme park group before become CEO.
In an interview posted by Morgan Park Academy, where Daniel attended high school and played basketball, the executive said he enjoyed being a part of Disney’s deal with Marvel – the comic book studio that spawned the world‘s most successful movie franchise.
“One of the highlights of my career was being a member of the team that worked on the Marvel acquisition in 2009 and being able to talk to my mom about it and better explain what I did for a living,” said he declared.
Daniel has gone on to become one of Disney’s most prominent black executives, whose top management consists mostly of white men. Rebecca Campbell, one of Disney’s top female executives, now reports to Daniel regarding the streaming business. She still reports to Chapek on the company’s international operations.
Daniel is also described as a movie buff who regularly attends the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. As a result, he’s likely to argue not only for the big-budget images that Hollywood has drifted into in recent years, but also for the smaller films that could find a niche on the company’s Disney + and Hulu services.
“One of the biggest opportunities I had growing up was seeing movies with my older cousin almost every weekend,” he told Morgan Park Academy. “I’ve always loved movies, but growing up I never imagined there was a business side to entertainment. I just had no idea. After college, I started to realize that there was something there.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
