Disney Streaming Hires Devika Chawla and Arun Chandra for Senior Roles

According to Variety, Disney Streaming hired Netflix’s Devika Chawla and Meta’s Arun Chandra for senior roles.

What's Happening:

  • Disney streaming service operates Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, and Star+ services globally.
  • There are two veterans that are being brought on for senior roles.

Devika Chawla:

  • Devika Chawla joins Disney Streaming next week as senior vice president of lifecycle engineering.
  • This is after almost a decade at Netflix building out global customer communication products and teams.
  • Her most recent role was as director of engineering, messaging and contact at Netflix.
  • Chawla will be leading Disney’s initiatives to "optimize customer journeys, interactions, and retention" for Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, and Star+, the company said.
  • For this role, she will be head of strategy and roadmap for all global customer communications and work closely with the group data team as well as business and regional leadership in the EMEA, LATAM, and APAC regions.
  • Chawla will be reporting directly to Sean Curtis, who is the senior VP of services and data engineering at Disney Streaming.
  • Chawla, shared in a statement provided by Disney, said: "I’m very excited about the huge potential and impact of elevating consumer lifecycle experiences across Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ and Star+ globally. The opportunity to build world-class teams, technologies and products for this scale that amplify the stories created at Disney is tremendous. I look forward to experiencing the magic and adventure at Disney."

Arun Chandra:

  • Arun Chandra will be joining the Disney streaming team as senior vice president of experience.
  • Chandra previously spent four years as VP of scaled operations at Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
  • He will helm the company’s viewer experience teams, partner management operations, support channels, and audience insights for subscribers across Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, and Star+.
  • Chandra will report directly to Alisa Bowen, executive VP of business operations.
  • Chandra stated, "I am proud to join Disney, a company that continuously innovates to delight customers in both the digital and physical worlds. It’s incredibly exciting to have this opportunity to scale up our best-in-class viewer experience team for Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, and Star+ and deliver an exceptional experience for all our viewers across the globe."