Indian-American Sikh executive Karandeep Anand has been named The Walt Disney Company’s first company-wide Chief Technology Officer. Photo courtesy of The Walt Disney Company
By Geeta Goindi
September 21, 2026 – The Walt Disney Company has named Indian-American Sikh executive Karandeep Anand as its first company-wide Chief Technology Officer (CTO), placing a Silicon Valley leader in charge of the digital future of one of the world’s most storied entertainment companies.
Anand will join Disney as senior executive vice president and CTO on October 2, reporting directly to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Josh D’Amaro. The newly created position marks the first time the company has appointed a technology head with responsibility across all its businesses.
In the sweeping role, Anand will oversee enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, product and engineering. He will work across Disney’s businesses to modernize its systems and capabilities. The appointment comes as D’Amaro seeks to make technology a stronger driver of growth and create a more connected experience for consumers, with Disney+ serving as a digital centerpiece.
“Karandeep brings a rare mix of experience across infrastructure, consumer technology and AI,” D’Amaro said in announcing the appointment, describing him as an expert builder and strategist who understands what audiences want.
Anand brings more than two decades of experience spanning cloud computing, consumer products and financial technology.
He joins Disney from Character.AI, where he served as CEO and led the generative AI company through a period of rapid growth, building what Disney describes as one of the world’s most engaged consumer-AI audiences.
Before Character.AI, Anand was president and chief product officer at Brex. Earlier, he spent six years at Meta, where he held several leadership positions, ultimately serving as vice president of Business Products.
His longest professional chapter was at Microsoft, where he spent 15 years in senior product and engineering roles and was part of the team that built Azure, the company’s cloud computing platform.
Anand’s path to the upper ranks of American technology began in India.
He earned a B.Tech (Honors) in Computer Science and Engineering from the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H), one of India’s leading research-focused institutions. He later pursued studies in marketing and strategy at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
For the Sikh-American community, his visibility carries additional significance.
Anand, whose full name is Karandeep Singh Anand but who professionally uses Karandeep Anand, is a Punjabi Sikh. His ascent to Disney’s senior leadership ranks places a visible Sikh executive in an influential position at a company whose films, television networks, streaming services, sports properties and theme parks are woven into American popular culture and reach audiences around the world.
Sikhs have been part of the American story for generations, yet misconceptions about their faith and identity persist. Anand’s appointment offers a powerful image of Sikh achievement in corporate America and greater visibility for a community that remains widely misunderstood in the United States.
For Anand, the opportunity brings together technology and storytelling.
“I’ve admired Disney my entire life for how it blends unforgettable storytelling with the latest technology to constantly push the boundaries of what entertainment can be,” Anand said.
He added that he is honored to join Disney’s creative team and looks forward to building on its capabilities to find new ways of connecting fans around the world with the company’s stories and characters.
His move to Disney comes with an intriguing history.
In September 2025, Disney sent Character.AI a cease-and-desist letter over user-generated chatbots based on Disney-owned characters, alleging infringement of its intellectual property. Character.AI subsequently removed the characters.
A year later, Disney has chosen the executive who led Character.AI to help shape its digital future. Members of Character.AI’s technical team are also expected to join him.
The move illustrates the rapidly disappearing boundaries between Silicon Valley and Hollywood, as artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure, data and digital products become increasingly central to how entertainment companies create, distribute and connect audiences with content.
Anand’s appointment also adds another chapter to the growing influence of Indian-origin executives in corporate America. Satya Nadella leads Microsoft, Sundar Pichai heads Alphabet and Google, Arvind Krishna is chairman and CEO of IBM, and Neal Mohan leads YouTube.
But Anand’s appointment is distinctive in another way. Rather than taking the helm of a traditional Silicon Valley technology company, an Indian-educated engineer is assuming responsibility for technology across one of America’s most iconic entertainment institutions.
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