Layoffs represent first significant move from new CEO Josh D’Amaro
Walt Disney’s first major move under new chief executive Josh D’Amaro is a warning to HR leaders that cost-cutting is moving deeper into white-collar ranks, with marketing now squarely in the crosshairs.
Disney plans to cut about 1,000 roles in the coming weeks, with most of the reductions expected in its marketing organization, recently consolidated under a single chief marketing and brand leader. The layoffs are part of a restructuring that began before D’Amaro took the top job, but they are quickly becoming a defining early act of his tenure.
The move shows how functions once viewed as protected - particularly marketing, brand and communications - are increasingly exposed as companies adapt to streaming-era economics, data-driven customer acquisition and automation.
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Disney has been here before. The company shed 8,000 jobs in 2023 under then-CEO Bob Iger in a broad cost-cutting push. What stands out now is the focus on a single corporate function inside a business that employs well over 200,000 people worldwide. Instead of spreading reductions across units, leadership is targeting a high-profile discipline long regarded as central to growth.
The cuts follow a reorganization that centralized previously fragmented marketing operations. HR leaders will recognize the pattern: consolidation is often the prelude to job losses as overlapping responsibilities and duplicative work are identified and eliminated.
At the same time, D’Amaro faces pressure to make streaming profitable, manage the decline of linear TV, and keep funding content and parks. In that context, boards and investors are more willing to accept selective white-collar and creative cuts if they are framed as strategic focus rather than distress.
For HR leaders elsewhere, three messages are clear.
First, marketing is not a safe zone. Even marquee brands will pare back these teams if leaders believe similar output can come from a leaner, more centralized model supported by data and technology.
Second, expect more quiet, incremental restructurings in corporate functions, branded as “reorgs” or “role changes” rather than formal layoffs.
Third, cutting the people who shape the company’s story carries reputational risk that needs managing.
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On D’Amaro’s first official day as CEO in March, he acknowledge the word Iger had done.
“When Bob returned to the company a few years ago, his goal was to fortify our business and lay the groundwork for long-term growth, by reigniting creativity and improving performance at our studios, building a robust and profitable streaming business, transforming ESPN for a digital future, and turbocharging our parks and experiences,” D’Amaro said at the company’s investor day.
“We’ve accomplished all of those things, and we’re operating from a place of strength, with ample opportunity for growth.”
