Disney puts Adam Smith in charge of its streaming business

Adam Smith has been named chairman of Direct-to-Consumer for Disney Entertainment, putting the former co-president in charge of the company’s global streaming business. Disney announced the move on September 17, with Smith taking responsibility for Disney+, Hulu, product, engineering, advertising technology, programming strategy, viewer experience, partnerships and data analytics. The Walt Disney Company confirmed the appointment, and Reuters reported the change.\n\nSmith previously shared the direct-to-consumer leadership role with Joe Earley, who is moving to a newly created position as president of Disney Entertainment Television Franchise and Content Strategy. The practical shift is from shared oversight to one accountable leader for the streaming business, at a moment when Disney is trying to make its digital relationship with viewers more coherent.\n\nA single owner for Disney+ and Hulu\n\nDisney’s announcement gives Smith a broad operating brief: drive strategy, development and innovation across the company’s streaming platforms while coordinating product, technology and the advertising stack. Dana Walden, Disney’s president and chief creative officer, said Smith had built a world-class product and technology team and significantly improved the Disney+ user experience globally.\n\nSmith joined Disney in 2024 after more than two decades at Google, including 13 years at YouTube. Before this move, he served as co-president of direct-to-consumer and chief product and technology officer for Disney Entertainment and ESPN. That background makes the appointment less a reset than an elevation of the executive already closest to the company’s product architecture.\n\nThe change also connects with Disney’s appointment of Karandeep Anand as its first CTO, announced one day later. Taken together, the two moves put product, technology and streaming at the centre of Disney’s next operating conversation: Anand owns the enterprise technology stack, while Smith owns the consumer-facing relationship.\n\nThe distinction matters because the company’s streaming challenge is not only about adding subscribers. It is about making Disney+ and Hulu easier to use, easier to monetize and more closely connected to the creative and advertising businesses around them. Smith’s mandate gives him authority over the systems that shape that experience, while Earley’s new role keeps franchise and content strategy connected to the same broader plan.