Karandeep Anand/Image: Reuters
Disney said Anand will join as Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer on October 2. He spent 15 years at Microsoft, holding senior product and engineering roles and working on the team that built the Azure platform.
“Karandeep brings a rare mix of experience across infrastructure, consumer technology and AI, and will be a vital addition to Disney’s senior leadership team,” D’Amaro said. The newly created role will put him in charge of enterprise technology, infrastructure, data and AI platforms, product and engineering. He will report to Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro. “He is an expert builder and strategist, technical and product-minded, with sharp instincts for what fans actually want. He also has a clear sense of where technology and creativity meet. He later moved to Meta, where he held several leadership positions at Facebook, most recently serving as vice president of Ads & Business Products. He then joined financial technology company Brex as president and chief product officer, expanding his experience across consumer and business technology.
At Character.AI, Anand served as CEO, an AI platform that allows users to interact with AI-powered characters. The company experienced rapid growth during his tenure, building a large consumer audience. His work at Character.AI built on his expertise in consumer artificial intelligence, a field that is increasingly shaping how people interact with digital products.