Josh D’Amaro’s First Big Move as Disney’s New CEO: Nearly 1,000 Job Cuts

The company is shaking up its marketing department.

BY MOSES JEANFRANCOIS, NEWS WRITER @MOSESJEANS

Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro in Paris, France. Photo: Getty Images

Weeks after new CEO Josh D’Amaro took the reigns, Walt Disney is looking to lay off nearly 1,000 positions in the company’s marketing department. 

Slated to be announced in the upcoming weeks, this new cut would affect roughly 1% of total employees, according to sources at the Wall Street Journal. This employment restructuring marks a first major move by D’Amaro.  

His predecessor Bob Iger, whose second tenure as CEO began in 2022, laid off nearly 8,000 employees during his time, saving roughly $7.5 million, according to Quartz.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the upcoming layoffs were planned before D’Amaro took over as CEO.

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Disney’s latest restructuring is a bigger push under its executives. Variety reported that longtime company insider Asad Ayaz would be elevated in January to chief marketing and brand officer. Ayaz is set to unify Disney’s marketing operations across film, television, and streaming, and has planned to eliminate redundancies and present a more cohesive brand strategy.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the effort is known internally as Project Imagine. 

At the end of fiscal 2025, Disney ended with roughly 231,000 employees, about 80 percent of whom work in its experiences division, which includes theme parks, resorts, and consumer products. While those businesses have been expanding, most of the recent layoffs have hit the entertainment, ESPN, and corporate units. 

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