Disney Streaming makes senior appointments from Netflix and Meta

L-R: Devika Chawla, Arun Chandra

Disney has announced the hires of Devika Chawla and Arun Chandra from Netflix and Meta respectively to bolster its streaming division.

These are the latest hires for Disney Streaming – which operates Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu and Star– and comes several weeks after the division hired Google veteran Jeremy Doig as its CTO.

Chawla joins the company as senior VP of lifecycle engineering and spend almost a decade at Netflix focusing on its customer communication products and teams, most recently as director of engineering, messaging and contact. She will be charged with “optimising customer journeys” and reducing churn while working alongside the company’s data team. 

Chandra meanwhile joins Disney Streaming following four years at Facebook parent company Meta, most recently as VP of scaled operations. As senior VP of viewer experience, Chandra will oversee Disney Streaming’s viewer experience teams, partner management operations, support channels, and audience insights.

Chawla 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.”

Chandra said: “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.”