A significant reshuffling is underway inside The Walt Disney Company, and one of the more consequential changes involves a business that sometimes receives less attention than Disney’s movies, television networks or theme parks: consumer products.
Disney Consumer Products is moving from Disney Experiences into Disney Entertainment, placing the enormous merchandise and licensing operation within the corporate empire overseen by Disney President and Chief Creative Officer Dana Walden. At virtually the same time, Disney has elevated longtime company executive Joss Hastings to Senior Vice President of Marketing for Disney Consumer Products.
Hastings is unquestionably an experienced Disney insider. But she also has an affiliation outside the company that is worth noting as Disney continues wrestling with the relationship between its entertainment brands, corporate values and a politically divided consumer base.
Disney Taps Joss Hastings to Lead Marketing for Consumer Products https://t.co/mAJHI7RXYo
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) August 11, 2026
Hastings, identified by The Buckley School as Joss Hastings Price, currently serves as a trustee of the private K-12 school in Sherman Oaks, California. Buckley isn’t coy about its institutional priorities: diversity, equity and inclusion are formally embedded in its strategic objectives, curriculum philosophy and governance structure.
That does not establish that Hastings personally agrees with every position or program adopted by the school. It would be irresponsible to make that leap without evidence.
But serving as a trustee is more substantial than simply sending one’s child to a school or making a donation. Buckley itself says its trustees help establish the school’s strategic direction and safeguard the institution’s future. That makes Hastings’ role relevant when considering the people now helping shape one of Disney’s largest consumer-facing businesses.
And it comes as considerably more authority over Disney’s intellectual property is being consolidated under Walden. The question now becomes, is Dana Walden (largely reported as being best friends with Kamala Harris), moving The Walt Disney Company more towards a partisan and one-sided corporation with her strategic reshuffles and hires?
Kamala Harris. Dana Walden via Variety YouTube
Joss Hastings Takes a Major Consumer Products Marketing Role
Disney announced this week that Hastings will become Senior Vice President, Marketing, Disney Consumer Products, succeeding Ron Faris in a reorganized position.
Hastings is a roughly 20-year Disney veteran whose experience stretches across consumer products, television, digital media, music, parks and gaming. Most recently, she served as Vice President of Global Marketing for Disney Pixar & Softlines, working with brands including Disney Princess, Mickey & Friends and Toy Story. She also worked on Disney’s centennial marketing and the company’s Formula 1-related “Fuel the Magic” campaign.
Her new assignment is substantial.
The whole gang from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse – Disney+
Hastings is expected to lead global marketing strategy for Disney Consumer Products as Disney attempts to coordinate products, entertainment and franchises more tightly. She reports to Disney Chief Marketing and Brand Officer Asad Ayaz and Disney Consumer Products President Lisa Baldzicki.
Hastings will occupy an extraordinarily influential position. Marketing determines considerably more than how advertisements look. It helps determine which characters receive emphasis, which audiences Disney targets, which cultural partnerships the company pursues, how products are presented and how Disney attempts to make its franchises relevant to succeeding generations.
Hastings herself described the appointment as an opportunity to “lead Marketing for Disney Consumer Products” and called it the role she had been working toward throughout her career.
And the business she is marketing is enormous.
NEW: Disney is restructuring its Consumer Products division, with most of the business moving from Experiences to Studios beginning in October, according to a memo from Experiences Chairman Thomas Mazloum and Studios Chairman Alan Bergman. pic.twitter.com/pmHefc5cTB
— Scott Gustin @ D23 (@ScottGustin) August 5, 2026
Vogue recently described Disney Consumer Products as the world’s largest licensing operation, citing approximately $62 billion in retail sales, with Disney merchandise sold across roughly 180 countries and 100 product categories.
That’s Mickey Mouse pajamas and Marvel action figures, certainly – but also books, apparel, toys, collectibles, luxury collaborations, home goods, accessories and products tied to Star Wars, Pixar, Disney Princess, Frozen, Marvel and practically every other major Disney franchise.
But… more importantly… and organizationally… the move also represents another expansion of the extraordinary portfolio now associated with Dana Walden.
Dana Walden via Variety YouTube
Walden became President and Chief Creative Officer of The Walt Disney Company on March 18, 2026, reporting directly to CEO Josh D’Amaro. Disney says she leads the Entertainment segment, including streaming, film, television, gaming and digital entertainment while guiding creative strategy across the company’s entertainment businesses.
That already makes Walden one of the most powerful executives in Hollywood.
Adding Consumer Products to the Entertainment structure means the corporate organization surrounding Walden increasingly encompasses not simply what Disney audiences watch, but also significant portions of what those audiences buy.
Films create the characters. Television and streaming maintain the franchises. Games make them interactive. Consumer products turn them into physical goods.That is an enormous amount of cultural and commercial influence being aligned within one organizational structure.
Which brings us back to Hastings.
The current Board of Trustees page for The Buckley School, a private K-12 school in Sherman Oaks, lists Joss Hastings Price as a trustee. Independent nonprofit records likewise identify Joss Hastings-Price as a member of Buckley’s board.
The Climate Action Team isn’t the only group on campus with green thumbs! Second-grade teachers joined forces with the CAT to teach second-grade students about gardening and planted carrots, lettuce, green beans, and other vegetables!. We’re excited to see what comes up pic.twitter.com/wpLLAPEYZt
— The Buckley School (@BuckleySchool) June 8, 2024
Buckley explains that its trustees have four principal responsibilities, including setting the strategic direction of the institution, ensuring legal compliance, overseeing its financial future and selecting and evaluating the head of school. The school also says trustees participate in at least two board committees during each year of their service.
One of those standing board committees is specifically dedicated to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Buckley’s larger institutional stance on DEI is unmistakable.
Here are some of the quotes from The Buckley School’s website:
- Make equity and inclusion a strategic focus of curriculum development to ensure that the initiative is systematically infused into each classroom and every component of Buckley’s philosophy.
- Every ninth grade student at Buckley takes this signature course, which builds awareness, leadership skills, and identity development. Students explore big themes such as power, systems of oppression, gentrification, and how dominant culture plays out in the media and creation of self-image.
More significantly, Buckley says equity and inclusion should become a strategic focus of curriculum development and should be systematically integrated throughout classrooms and the school’s educational philosophy. It also seeks to increase diversity through recruitment and retention initiatives involving students, faculty and staff.
How can music and social justice connect? Dr. @Phil_Woodmore challenged students to answer this question during his two-day visit by having them unpack the power of music in relation to the topics of social justice, social media, global warming, and more: https://t.co/3VQdh7pDdt pic.twitter.com/yB3U5q34vG
— The Buckley School (@BuckleySchool) February 22, 2022
Being a trustee of Buckley does not prove that Hastings personally endorses every DEI policy, curriculum decision, speaker, training program or position adopted by the institution.There is no basis in the presently available evidence for writing something like, “Joss Hastings believes X about race,” or “Joss Hastings believes Y about gender.”Those would be assertions about an individual’s beliefs that require direct evidence.
But neither is a trusteeship meaningless.
Buckley doesn’t describe its trustees as ceremonial figureheads. It says they help establish the school’s strategic direction, with the institution’s mission and strategic goals serving as guideposts for board decisions.
Consequently, it is fair to say that Hastings holds a governance position at an institution that has adopted a strong and explicit DEI program.
And the distinction is particularly important because Disney has already experienced the financial and reputational consequences of being perceived as taking sides in America’s culture wars.
The deeper story here isn’t necessarily Joss Hastings. It is the corporate structure Disney is building. Disney has spent years trying to reconcile two objectives that sometimes conflict. It wants its brands to participate in contemporary culture. But it also needs Mickey Mouse, Disney Princess, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars to appeal to families whose politics, religions, values and social attitudes vary dramatically.
🗣Prospective families! Want an inside look into DEI at Buckley? Join our parent and family affinity groups for an in-person event on December 9 to learn more about DEI at Buckley! Visit the link to register by December 7 at 12:00 noon: https://t.co/U82MpLQ6du pic.twitter.com/pvgIBwgsaT
— The Buckley School (@BuckleySchool) December 6, 2021
Consumer Products arguably has an even greater need for ideological neutrality than some entertainment businesses.
A television producer can make a program designed for a particular demographic. A movie can target a particular audience. But Mickey Mouse is supposed to sell everywhere. Disney Princesses have to work in Los Angeles, Nashville, London, Tokyo and Orlando. The entire economic power of Disney Consumer Products rests on the proposition that Disney characters can transcend the differences separating consumers.
That makes the philosophies of the executives shaping those products and their marketing a legitimate subject of scrutiny; whether those executives lean progressive, conservative or anywhere else.
Under Disney’s new leadership structure, Dana Walden isn’t merely a television executive anymore.
Hexed Teaser Trailer – Walt Disney Animation Studios, YouTube
Disney officially describes her as responsible for an Entertainment organization encompassing film, television, Disney+, Hulu, gaming and digital entertainment, while also giving her company-wide responsibility for creative strategy. Now Consumer Products is being drawn into that orbit.
That’s a business tied to tens of billions of dollars in worldwide retail activity and products found in children’s bedrooms, schools, department stores, supermarkets, theme parks and homes around the globe. And one of the executives given substantial responsibility for presenting those products to the public is simultaneously a trustee of a school whose stated strategy calls for systematically incorporating equity and inclusion throughout its educational environment.
Some Disney customers will applaud that association. Others may view it as another indication that the people controlling Disney’s brands circulate within institutions whose social philosophies differ considerably from their own.
After all, Disney Consumer Products doesn’t simply sell merchandise. It decides how Mickey Mouse, Disney Princess, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars are presented to the world.
