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What Does It Actually Take to Lead Disney? My Conversation With Thomas Mazloum, Chairman of Disney Experiences This Thomas Mazloum interview is one I have been thinking about ever since I left Disneyland. I have been covering Disney for more than 20 years. I have sat down with Imagineers, executives, cast members, and legends. But sitting down with Thomas Mazloum Chairman of Disney Experiences for his first interview in his new role, at a Make-A-Wish event at Disneyland, was something different entirely. It was honest. It was personal. It was unscripted. And what Thomas shared about Disney parks leadership philosophy about trust, people-first leadership, and what Walt still means to him every single day is something every Disney fan needs to hear. We spoke one-on-one, in his first interview since stepping into this role from now-CEO Josh D Amaro. No talking points. No PR handler. Just a real conversation about what it means to lead the most beloved entertainment brand in the world and what he personally promises to every Disney guest and cast member on the planet. I left smiling. And I think you will too. The Thomas Mazloum Interview Who Is He and Why This Moment Matters If you are a longtime listener of WDW Radio, you may remember Thomas from our conversation back in November 2024, when we sat down to talk about the future of Disney Cruise Line right after the christening of the Disney Treasure. If you missed that episode, go back and listen it is one of the most listened-to episodes of the past year. Thomas has been part of the Disney family since 1998, when he joined Disney Cruise Line as a hotel director. His career since then reads like a masterclass in Disney leadership key roles across Walt Disney World, EPCOT, and Disney Springs, a stint as COO of Crystal Cruise Line, and a return to Disney in 2017. He went on to lead Disney Signature Experiences through one of its most ambitious expansion periods initiating the plan to double the cruise fleet and overseeing the opening of Disney Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point in the Bahamas before leading Disneyland Resort through its 70th anniversary celebration and the Disneyland Forward initiative. Now he holds the biggest role of his career: Chairman of Disney Experiences. A portfolio spanning 12 theme parks, 57 resort hotels, Disney Cruise Line, Walt Disney Imagineering, Disney Vacation Club, Adventures by Disney, National Geographic Expeditions, Aulani, Golden Oak, Storyliving by Disney, Consumer Products, and more than 180,000 Cast Members worldwide. That is the scope. Here is the person behind it. It Started With Make-A-Wish We did not begin our conversation with strategy or expansion plans. We began with Make-A-Wish because that is where we happened to be, and because it felt like exactly the right place to start. I shared my own story: how I began working with Make-A-Wish in 2003, when my dad was sick and I wanted to help those kids. Over two decades later, the WDW Radio community has raised more than $550,000 to send children and their families to Disney. Being in that room, watching those families experience something extraordinary, is never something I take for granted. Thomas shared his own moment. Years ago, on a flight to California with a connection in Salt Lake City, the captain came over the PA and announced there was a Make-A-Wish child on the plane whose wish was to go to Disneyland. The entire plane erupted in applause spontaneously, in the same breath. Disney grants a wish almost every hour of the day, Thomas told me. And for me, it s actually humbling. Because when you think about this, these beautiful children choose Disney at one of the most important times in their life. He is joining the board of Make-A-Wish in America. That is not a career move. That is a conviction. Thomas Mazloum Interview Scale Doesn t Change What Matters I asked Thomas the question at the heart of this Thomas Mazloum interview and the one I genuinely wanted answered: how do you lead 180,000 cast members and still make every single guest feel like the only person in the room? His answer defines his entire Disney parks leadership philosophy. His answer was immediate and clear and it is the line I keep coming back to. Scale doesn t necessarily change what matters. And what matters and what has always guided me is I always believe you got to put the guests and the people that are coming in the center of your decision making. Scale doesn t really change what truly matters. He talked about his background in hospitality, and how early on he learned that trust is everything. Not earned once earned continuously. You gotta continue to work on earning the trust. Disney matters to people. And protecting that trust that we have is incredibly important to me. What struck me most is that this is not a talking point. I have watched Thomas in the parks. I have seen how he interacts with guests and cast members. The person you are speaking with is always the only person in the room. At whatever scale that takes. Hire for Attitude, Train for Skills Disney Parks Leadership Philosophy in Practice One of the things I love most about Thomas is the way he talks about cast members not as a resource to manage but as the living embodiment of everything Disney stands for. This is Disney parks leadership philosophy made tangible. Cast satisfaction is at an all-time high, he said. Retention is better than it s ever been before. And then he made it practical: What we re working on really hard is not just hiring, but seeking the right personalities. I call it hire for attitude, train for skills. And then he went to Walt as he did several times throughout our conversation. Walt said and I keep quoting him You can build the most beautiful places in the world, but it takes people to make the dream a reality. And that s exactly what we re doing. It is not a poster quote for Thomas. It is his daily operating principle. Trust, Quality, Simplicity The Core of His Disney Parks Leadership Philosophy When I noted that trust is one of Thomas s three guiding pillars along with quality and simplicity he expanded on what it actually takes to hold onto them in a company of this complexity and scale. This is the Disney parks leadership philosophy that has guided him throughout his entire career. When a company grows, it s really important that you focus on priorities. And it means you need to be even more focused and have the discipline to stick to them. Because it s very easy to get distracted. In a large global organization, you can chase the shiny object. But it s truly about the basics. And the basics are: what are we doing every day to ensure that the responsibility we have in reinforcing the trust that our guests have in the Disney brand? This is the discipline I see in Thomas that sets him apart. The ability to say no to the shiny object. To come back, again and again, to what actually matters. His Three Priorities in This New Role When I asked what Thomas s impact would look like in the near term what he was most focused on now that he has this platform he gave me three things, simply and without hesitation. Number one is execution. All of the things that we do around the world I ll be executing, fulfilling the promise that we made to our guests and our cast members. Number two is to continue to make decisions with the guest experience in mind. And number three and I can t say this often enough is to ensure that we use as our north star that Disney matters to people, and protecting their trust matters enormously. Execution. Guest experience. Trust. That is the roadmap. Disney Cruise Line and a World of New Guests We talked at length about Disney Cruise Line s global expansion doubling the fleet, the Disney Adventure in Singapore, a new ship coming to Tokyo, and the extraordinary opportunity to bring Disney to hundreds of millions of people around the world who love the brand but have never had easy access to a park. I see the ships as a way to connect a lot of our portfolios together and to serve these fans where they are and immerse them in our stories, he said. Our ships are really three vacations in one. We immerse you in our Disney stories. You have the convenience of a cruise. And you see beautiful destinations. I had just stepped off two back to back sailings on the Disney Adventure, still jet lagged and still smiling. I mentioned that I had gone in with preconceptions worried that guests from the region would not embrace DCL traditions like door decorating and how completely wrong I was. Thomas smiled. Our parks around the globe have helped us a great deal. We ve opened Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Paris. We ve learned a lot as we entered those countries. And taking all that experience now enables the cruise line to set itself up for success as we expand internationally. When I said the Adventure felt like it brought the theme parks to the sea a floating extension of the same Disneyland Forward vision that is reshaping what Disney destinations can be Thomas had a better way of putting it: Very much so with a brand new audience. The Disneyland Forward vision and the cruise expansion are, in his mind, part of the same story. Disneyland Forward Vision Walt s North Star The Disneyland Forward vision is one of the most exciting things happening in Disney parks right now and in this Thomas Mazloum interview, he shared exactly what guides it. When I asked Thomas about the Disneyland Forward vision and what serves as his north star for the project, he pointed to the quote that sat in his office every single day during his time leading Disneyland Resort. The Disneyland Forward vision, he explained, is rooted in Walt s own words. He pointed to the quote that sat in his office every single day during his time leading Disneyland. My north star was really a quote by Walt that said: This event will never be completed as long as there is imagination left in the world. That was my north star. It s a true story every single day. He talked about how the limited space of Disneyland compared to Walt Disney World or some international parks is not a constraint but a creative catalyst. Sometimes the restrictions of not having all that space requires you to be even more creative. And I think Disneyland Forward just continues to bring the best out of us from a creative point of view. It is a sentiment I heard echoed in my conversation with Bruce Vaughn, Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Imagineering that the most inspired work often comes from the tightest constraints. The Disneyland Forward vision, he made clear, is not about what cannot be done in a limited space. It is about what imagination demands be done anyway. And the Disneyland Forward vision continues to evolve with every new story Disney finds waiting to be told. And then, with quiet certainty: We have a lot of stories left to tell. There s a lot of different stories that we haven t told yet, including here at Disneyland. The Disneyland Forward vision is guided by that belief. I believe him. It s Not About the What It s the How I asked Thomas the question that sits at the heart of any honest Disney parks leadership philosophy: how does a people-first leader navigate the very real pressure of Wall Street growth targets and shareholder expectations? His answer was one of the clearest things I have heard from any executive in any company. I always say it s not about the what, it s the how. Of course, every company is responsible to someone. But it s always important to focus on how you are doing things. Because if you focus on how you re doing things, and if you do it in the right way, the what will be there, the results will be there. If all I do is focus on the result, the how will suffer. He said it without hesitation. And then he brought it back, as he always does, to the same foundation: We re going to continue to make decisions that are in the interest of our cast and our guests. I firmly believe this is what creates the trust. This is what sustains us. And this is what s going to continue to allow us to succeed. Why Guest Feedback Is a Privilege I pushed a little further noting that sometimes the desires of very vocal guests and very vocal shareholders can be in direct conflict. His answer genuinely moved me. I got a lot of feedback from guests and from cast members. But what was beautiful about this is I discovered very quickly it comes from a place of caring deeply. Our guests, our cast they want Walt Disney World, Disneyland, our parks and our cruises to be successful because they care about it. And I see this as one of the most privileged things you can have. He continued: You can work for companies where you have to literally fight every day to earn a tiny bit of trust. And we are in this fortunate position where people care about our parks, they care about our ships, they care about our brand very passionately. And I appreciate that. That s why I love the feedback. It doesn t matter what it is. Because it comes from a place of caring deeply. That is the perspective of a leader who has earned the trust he is talking about protecting. What Is Timeless Near the end of our conversation, I asked Thomas about generational change about how guest expectations evolve, how technology shifts the experience, how Disney stays relevant to a generation that might discover it on YouTube rather than on four TV channels. When I grew up, I think we had four TV channels. This is how I discovered Disney. Today, maybe that generation has 600 channels, or they may not even watch TV and discover it somewhere else entirely. But what hasn t changed? He paused. What really hasn t changed and more so today than ever before is still the desire to experience something together with people that you care about in a physical world. And especially in a world that is very digital these days. I would actually argue today, a Disney experience is more relevant than ever. It s more meaningful than ever. And then, simply: They come to this place for something very, very special. To experience the stories that they discovered. And to spend really beautiful time together with the people they care most about. And if anything, that will never change. I have been saying a version of this for 20 years. Hearing Thomas say it with the full weight of this role and this moment behind it made me feel it all over again. His Promise At the end of every conversation I have with a Disney leader who takes on a new role, I ask the same question. Josh D Amaro answered it when he stepped into his role at D23, and again when he became CEO. Now I asked Thomas. What is your promise to every Disney guest and cast member in the world? He did not hesitate for even a moment. My promise and commitment is that we re always going to be a company that is going to listen intensely. We re always going to care about their feelings. And if we sometimes do something and we don t get it 100% right, we re going to listen and we re going to continue to do the right thing. We re going to focus on making decisions that are in the interest of our guests. We re going to make sure we continue to support and enable our cast members to interact with our guests in a way that is memorable. And we re going to continue to protect what people care about because they trust this brand. And we re going to continue to protect that trust. That is my commitment to all of our guests and our cast members. I smiled the whole time he was saying it. Not because it sounded good. Because I believed every word. My Takeaways From This Thomas Mazloum Interview I walked away from this Thomas Mazloum interview with a few things I keep turning over in my mind. And I think they say everything about his Disney parks leadership philosophy. Scale is not an excuse. The easiest thing in the world would be to use the size and complexity of this organization as a reason why the individual guest experience sometimes suffers. Thomas refuses that framing entirely. Scale doesn t change what matters. Full stop. Walt is not decoration. Thomas quotes Walt Disney not because it plays well in an interview, but because those words are genuinely operational for him. They guide how he hires, how he leads, and how he thinks about the Disneyland Forward vision and everything beyond it. That is rare. And it matters. Trust is not a marketing strategy. Every time Thomas came back to trust, he came back to it as a responsibility something given to you by people who care, and something you are obligated to protect. Not because it is good for business. Because it is right. This is the heart of his Disney parks leadership philosophy. The best is still coming. Disney is in the middle of the most ambitious expansion in its history. New parks. New ships. New destinations. The Disneyland Forward vision continues to unfold. New audiences are discovering Disney for the very first time. I saw the early seeds of what is coming during my secret visit to Walt Disney Imagineering. And at the center of all of it is a person who wakes up every day thinking about the cast members and the guests who make it all real. I cannot wait to see what Thomas does with this. And I am grateful genuinely, deeply grateful that he took the time to sit with me for this Thomas Mazloum interview and share it. Listen to the Full Thomas Mazloum Interview Episode 864 of WDW Radio What Does It Actually Take to Lead Disney? Chairman Thomas Mazloum His First Interview is available now. Apple Podcasts: WDWRadio.com/Apple Spotify: WDWRadio.com/Spotify WDW Radio: WDWRadio.com/864 Join the Conversation Thomas talked throughout this conversation about trust about how Disney earns it, protects it, and why it matters so deeply to him personally. So I want to ask you: What is the moment that made you trust Disney? The experience. The cast member. The memory that made you stop and think yes. This place is different. This place is special. Call the WDW Radio voicemail: 407-900-9391 Share it in the WDW Radio Clubhouse: WDWRadio.com/Clubhouse I am going to read every single one. Plan Your Next Disney Experience When you are ready to make your own Disney memories, my friends at Mouse Fan Travel are the people I trust with my own travel and the travel of everyone I care about. They have been planning magical Disney vacations since 2005, they are an Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, and their expert planning service is always completely fee-free. Visit MouseFanTravel.com to start planning. Lou Mongello is the host of WDW Radio, one of the longest-running and most-trusted Disney podcasts in the world, celebrating over 20 years of storytelling, community, and Disney magic. WDW Radio was inducted into the Podcast Hall of Fame in 2025.. The post Thomas Mazloum Interview What Does It Actually Take to Lead Disney? appeared first on WDW Radio.