Disney names Karandeep Anand as SEVP & chief technology officer

BURBANK: Karandeep Anand has joined The Walt Disney Company as senior executive vice president and chief technology officer, bringing experience spanning artificial intelligence, cloud computing, product development and digital platforms.

Anand announced the move in a LinkedIn post, saying he was excited to join Disney and expected members of Character.AI’s technical team to join him as well.

The appointment brings Anand into a company where technology sits alongside some of the world’s best-known entertainment properties. He said he had admired Disney throughout his life, from its films and theme parks to its broader experiences, and praised the way the company combines storytelling with technology.

Anand said he was looking forward to building on Disney’s technology capabilities and helping the company connect fans around the world with its stories and characters in new ways.

His most recent leadership role was at Character.AI, where he became chief executive officer in May 2025. He had previously served as a board adviser to the AI company from October 2024 to April 2025.

At Character.AI, Anand was involved with a platform focused on AI-powered interactions and entertainment, giving him experience in a rapidly developing part of the technology industry. He said he remained immensely proud of what the Character.AI team had built, describing it as a leading platform for entertainment and fandom.

Before Character.AI, Anand spent more than four years at fintech company Brex, including more than three years as president and chief product officer.

At Brex, his responsibilities covered product development, design, brand, marketing, sales and customer success. He was also an adviser to the company between March 2025 and February 2026.

Earlier in his career, Anand spent more than six years at Facebook, now part of Meta, across a range of technology and product leadership positions.

His Facebook roles included vice president of ads and business products, head of Workplace and vice president of product for Marketplace, Commerce and Payments.

He also led product teams covering Facebook’s platform, Audience Network, gaming and payments, as well as technical product and programme management for Facebook’s infrastructure.

That infrastructure role involved areas including AI and machine learning, video and photo services, data centres, networking, databases, storage and the technology supporting Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.

Anand’s technology career also includes more than 12 years at Microsoft, where he worked on Azure from 2002 to 2015.

As partner and director of product management for Microsoft Azure, he worked across the cloud platform’s application, management and developer platforms, user experience, commerce, payments and marketplace ecosystem.

His work included Azure’s management and developer platforms, billing and payments, customer and partner engagement, and the Azure Marketplace.

Anand began his career at Microsoft as a product management intern while pursuing his undergraduate degree at the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad. He holds a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science with honours in Data Sciences from the institute.

His move to Disney therefore brings together experience from several corners of the technology landscape, from Microsoft’s cloud business and Facebook’s global consumer platforms to Brex’s financial technology products and Character.AI’s generative AI ecosystem.

Anand thanked Disney chief executive officer Josh D’Amaro and the wider Disney team for the warm welcome. His new remit as senior executive vice president and CTO places that broad technology experience within one of the world’s largest entertainment companies, where technology increasingly shapes how audiences discover, access and experience content.