Rita Ferro at Disney Upfront 2026.
Courtesy: Disney Co.
As Rita Ferro, Disney president of worldwide promoting, ready to take the stage on the firm’s current upfront presentation, she had actor Paul Anthony Kelly on her thoughts.
Kelly not too long ago portrayed John F. Kennedy Jr. within the restricted FX TV collection “Love Story,” and met Ferro at an earlier occasion. After a fangirl second that included an iPhone snapshot, Ferro requested that Kelly introduce her on the annual pitch to advertisers.
“That is the Disney distinction: belief, innovation and unmatched fandom. Not simply with the tales they inform, however how they function as an organization,” Kelly mentioned on stage earlier this month. “And all of that is largely as a consequence of Rita Ferro.”
“She claims to be my largest fan, however actually I feel I am hers,” Kelly mentioned.
Ferro is a 29-year veteran at Disney and has risen by way of numerous roles to the highest of its promoting enterprise. That locations her on the middle of a media trade rediscovering the significance of promoting, as conventional TV, streaming, digital and social platforms all jockey for viewers and advert {dollars}.
Whereas Disney and different media firms held exhibits in mid-Could to dazzle advertisers, the negotiations to lock in commitments are at the moment underway.
Ferro mentioned in interviews with CNBC that she thinks fandom — from sports activities to leisure franchises — is vital to driving the Disney portfolio and what unites the corporate’s divisions beneath newly put in CEO Josh D’Amaro.
“While you consider ‘One Disney,'” Ferro mentioned, referring to the technique being undertaken by D’Amaro, “and all the alternatives to tie in model partnerships with our film studio companions, [and] the company alliance items that may tie into park activations, it is a much more attention-grabbing and dynamic alternative than only a conventional media gross sales function.”
Rita Ferro and Paul Anthony Kelly.
Courtesy: Disney
From MTV to Disney
Ferro beforehand held roles at Disney at ESPN Worldwide, Disney Media Community’s Youngsters and Household, and Disney Interactive, which not exists however had centered on the event and distribution of video and cellular video games, social media and different digital merchandise.
In 2018, Ferro grew to become president of promoting within the U.S., and in 2023, she took over the enterprise globally. She now leads all promoting gross sales for Disney’s leisure, information and sports activities properties throughout linear TV, digital and streaming.
“On a regular basis you are studying, on a regular basis is completely different and we spend a lot time exterior studying our companions’ companies,” she mentioned. “That is what I really like.”
The daughter of Cuban immigrants who got here to the U.S. simply earlier than the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, Ferro was born and raised in Miami. She moved to New York Metropolis after graduating from Florida Worldwide College with the intention to turn into a copywriter and artwork director. After one class, she mentioned, it grew to become clear she wasn’t fitted to that profession.
Ferro mentioned she quickly obtained concerned in fundraising for a manufacturing firm that showcased Latino comedians and “realized that I used to be significantly better at that aspect.” She obtained her begin within the media advert trade working for MTV in Latin America earlier than its official launch.
“These have been the very early, early, early days of cable. MTV was possibly the second channel that launched within the area. In 1993 you are constructing an trade that does not exist,” mentioned Ferro of her first job. “So I am very lucky, as a result of I additionally obtained to do issues with no blueprint. It was just a little unsophisticated and unpolished … which I feel I thrived in on the time.”
A couple of years later, her information of Latin America and talent to talk Spanish helped Ferro land a job at Disney, which led her again to New York. She now resides in New Jersey along with her husband and daughter, working in Disney’s Manhattan workplace when she’s not touring for work.
Ferro mentioned previous to the corporate’s upfront presentation earlier this month, she had hardly spent an uninterrupted week at residence this 12 months. Her schedule has included the CES commerce present in Las Vegas, the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, and the White Home Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. That is along with visiting numerous Disney workplaces to see her world workforce and sometimes attending sporting occasions with ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro.
L-R: Lisa Sherman, Roger Goodell, Jimmy Pitaro and Rita Ferro.
Courtesy: Disney Co.
“One of many issues that I like most about her is the truth that she is within the area. You get to a sure stage in gross sales and a whole lot of of us determine they are going to give attention to managing the workforce,” mentioned Pitaro, one in every of three Disney leaders who Ferro reviews to. “Rita does a improbable job managing the workforce, however that’s solely a small a part of what she considers her function to be.”
Colleagues of Ferro’s, each internally at Disney and extra broadly throughout the trade, famous in interviews that her path to the highest of a media large’s advert enterprise has been non-traditional. On the identical time — maybe serendipitously — her numerous roles through the years align with among the fundamental areas of progress now central to the media trade.
Promoting the Disney portfolio
Co-Chairman of Disney Leisure Alan Bergman speaks on stage throughout the Walt Disney Studios presentation at CinemaCon at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on April 16, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Valerie Macon | AFP | Getty Photos
Disney has not been proof against current trade turmoil, present process consolidations, reorganizations and management modifications.
In March D’Amaro took over as CEO following Bob Iger’s second stint on the helm of the corporate — that the majority current tenure lasting lower than 4 years and designed to fortify Disney’s place in streaming, return the film studio to its prior dominance and additional propel its theme parks and experiences.
On his first day as CEO, D’Amaro mentioned his purpose was to focus the corporate on “coming collectively as one Disney to ship a extra linked, customized and immersive expertise to our shoppers.”
Earlier this month throughout the firm’s quarterly earnings name, CFO Hugh Johnston added it is “about how we create, distribute, have interaction, and monetize our tales and types throughout the corporate in a approach that will increase the lifetime worth of our shoppers and drives compounding returns for our backside line – and thus for our shareholders.”
Monetizing tales is the place Ferro is available in.
Her mandate spans leisure TV networks — with marquee occasions just like the Oscars and Grammys —streaming platforms Disney+ and Hulu and Disney’s sports activities portfolio, primarily comprised of ESPN’s linear and streaming choices.
“Our portfolio is massive, however it’s straightforward to navigate for our advertisers due to the best way Rita has structured it. I will name it one-stop purchasing for every little thing that they want,” mentioned Debra OConnell, chairman of Disney Leisure Tv and one other of Ferro’s bosses alongside Pitaro and Disney Leisure Chairman Alan Bergman.
“She’s at all times been a pacesetter, and asks, ‘How can I carry alternatives to shoppers that really feel not solely completely different, but additionally amplifying the engagement {that a} shopper may have with our viewers?” mentioned OConnell in an interview.
Media firms have leaned into established mental property within the face of widespread trade challenges together with the decline of conventional cable TV subscribers; the push to make streaming worthwhile in a extremely aggressive panorama; and the sluggish restoration of the theatrical trade after the Covid pandemic — all whereas combating to regain shoppers’ consideration that has shifted to social media platforms like TikTok.
The Walt Disney Firm and CEO Josh D’Amaro, ring the Opening Bell from the 2026 Disney Upfront on the North Javits Heart in New York Metropolis on Could 12, 2026.
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Amid the shift to streaming, promoting’s function has solely gained significance.
Wall Road as soon as rewarded media firms for streaming subscriber progress, however as these numbers have plateaued for many firms, the addition of ad-supported choices has been a brand new measure of success.
Though Hulu — which Disney acquired in items and took full management of in 2025 — was the primary streamer to get within the promoting recreation, the corporate’s flagship service, Disney+, launched in 2019, added a less expensive, advert tier in late 2022.
Throughout Disney’s most current quarterly report in early Could, the corporate’s leisure section reported that streaming income offset declines in each linear affiliate charges and promoting.
Disney+ noticed double-digit advert income progress in comparison with the identical interval final 12 months.
‘She’s at all times delivering’
As promoting reclaims the highlight, dwell sports activities more and more dominates the dialog. The class, which now grabs the largest audiences and advert {dollars}, is seeing ever-rising media rights prices.
The NFL is within the midst of an 11-year, $111 billion media rights deal, whereas the NBA is within the first season of its 11-year, $77 billion deal. Greater rights charges means a have to seize return on funding. At Disney, which means leveraging “the facility of dwell [events] and sports activities, and the energy of ESPN’s upcoming slate,” Pitaro mentioned in an interview.
“[Ferro] will get and understands that,” he mentioned. “That additionally comes with duty, proper? Sports activities rights are costly and they also need to be monetized, not simply by way of affiliate charges however by way of advert gross sales and sponsorships. And he or she’s at all times delivering for us.”
This 12 months ESPN will air the Tremendous Bowl for the first time ever, and the sport will return to Disney’s broadcast community ABC after 20 years. Tremendous Bowl advertisements, which garner file cash every year, are reportedly anticipated to promote for $10 million per 30-second spot.
Disney’s guess on sports activities and streaming amplified final August when the corporate launched the ESPN direct-to-consumer streaming app, which options all the content material from its TV community in addition to unique programming.
“To me, dwell sports activities is simply massively, massively beneficial to to us,” mentioned CFO Johnston at a current investor convention. “Extra importantly, it is massively beneficial to advertisers as a result of they need these large aggregated audiences and so they worth that tremendously.”
ESPN rings The Opening Bell on the New York Inventory Alternate on Aug. 21, 2025.
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Getting forward with tech
Rising as a key differentiator in world promoting, and on show throughout this 12 months’s upfront displays, is expertise.
“We have actually redone our advert tech stack in a approach that permits us to focus on for advertisers a lot, far more successfully,” Johnston mentioned at an early March investor convention.
For Disney, that is included the buildout of instruments and choices to unite streaming and linear TV for advert patrons; increasing measurement partnerships; creating Disney’s Viewers Graph, primarily its personal in-house first-party knowledge about viewership; and in 2025 unveiling its ad-supported month-to-month lively person methodology.
“That was very clear to me, that if we have been to compete we wanted to regulate our future,” slightly than depend on a third-party platform, Ferro mentioned.
These additions have debuted as a part of Disney’s Tech and Information showcase at CES, which started in 2021, and serves because the unofficial kickoff to the upfront. Many advert tech and knowledge corporations provide these providers to permit for higher concentrating on as advertisers are demanding more and more correct viewers measurement.
“She’s had the readability of thought to say, ‘We have to be a tech-driven, data-driven group with platforms that may compete on the stage of Google and Meta,'” mentioned Kevin Krim, CEO of advert knowledge agency EDO. “Disney was early in investing in that stuff and aggressive in a approach I feel others kind of hesitated after which later went all in.”
Rita Ferro at Disney Upfront 2026.
Courtesy: Disney Co.
A lot of Disney’s in-house tech has been integral as advertisers search for specifics to focus on viewers and measures outcomes.
Josh Mattison, government vp of digital income pricing, planning and operations at Disney, who reviews to Ferro, mentioned in an interview that Ferro made a degree to study the ins and outs of the digital instruments at Disney’s disposal.
“She understood the significance of getting your individual advert tech stack in an effort to scale globally and reply to the market’s expectations,” Mattison mentioned. “In case you have a look at one dimension of how Rita leads, it is by way of the lens of not simply embracing expertise, however actually driving expertise, each inside Disney, but additionally taking a place within the trade of how vital it’s for purchasers and the way vital it’s for our enterprise.”
Tapping into worldwide
Ferro’s subsequent frontier is one which calls again to the start of her profession.
Worldwide progress has emerged as a precedence for a lot of media firms, particularly streaming providers that see a lot of their additions exterior of the U.S. The identical is true for Disney.
“Disney+ has significant alternative for progress internationally, and we’re centered on scaling exterior the U.S.,” D’Amaro mentioned throughout the firm’s most up-to-date quarterly earnings name. “We’re rising our native content material investments, and early outcomes — they’re encouraging.”
For Ferro, this interprets to constructing out the ad-supported streaming enterprise overseas in an analogous approach to what she’s performed within the U.S.
“I began my profession worldwide, and so I am very passionate concerning the worldwide a part of my job,” Ferro mentioned. “The U.S. enterprise shouldn’t be solely mature, however there’s a like a cadence, if you’ll, that is very common.”
As compared, she mentioned, worldwide markets include extra selection and extra to study.
This summer season, Ferro plans to go to Paris for VivaTech, which she described as “the CES of Europe.” She’ll take her mom along with her to have fun the elder’s eightieth birthday.
Whereas in Paris, Ferro mentioned she plans to satisfy with firms and focus on how the nuances of worldwide markets can enhance Disney’s enterprise.
“For me, that is tremendous thrilling,” Ferro mentioned. “There is a vibrancy and a chance that you just’re like, ‘OK, I may actually make an impression right here.”
