Well now. Today is just full of surprises for Disney Parks fans.

Disney has announced that it’s completely reorganizing WDI (Walt Disney Imagineering) and rehiring veteran Imagineer Bruce Vaughn, who left the company in 2016.

Here’s the memo sent to staff via Josh D’Amaro…

DATE: March 7, 2023
TO: DPEP Executives, All WDI
FROM: Josh D’Amaro, Chairman, Disney Parks, Experiences and Products
SUBJECT: WDI Organizational Announcement: Welcome Back Bruce Vaughn

As Bob Iger often says, creativity is the heart and soul of who we are and what we do at Disney. In fact, as we look at our company’s 100-year history of bringing captivating and memorable storytelling to life, the consistent thread that binds us together as a company across all segments is our ability to drive innovation through creative projects.

In Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, we continue to invest in new endeavors that deliver the most compelling experiences, immersing our guests around the world in the stories they love most. In the past few years, we have found ourselves at the crossroads of a wave of new technology and a seemingly unlimited amount of new stories and franchises, allowing us to develop groundbreaking new experiences. Of course, none of this comes to life without a strong commitment to creativity and innovation by the amazing team at Walt Disney Imagineering.

With this in mind, I’m pleased to share that effective March 20, Bruce Vaughn is returning to Walt Disney Imagineering as the Chief Creative Officer. Bruce will co-lead the organization with WDI President Barbara Bouza, with both leaders reporting directly to me.

Together, Bruce and Barbara will partner closely to connect visionary creative thinking with project opportunities and flawless execution and delivery. With significant developments under way and more on the horizon, this dedicated focus toward creativity and innovation will help us deliver next-level experiences well into the future. To best accomplish this, they will be working together to swiftly identify the most effective way to structure Imagineering.

Many of you have had the opportunity to work with Bruce previously. He has a deep history with Imagineering, serving for more than two decades in leadership roles including with WDI R&D, as well as co-leading the entire WDI organization as Chief Creative Executive for nine years. Bruce left Disney in 2016 to become CEO and CCO of Dreamscape Immersive where he worked with teams to advance virtual reality technologies for mainstream location-based entertainment, and most recently was with Airbnb where he developed and led the Experiential Creative Product team.

Please join me in welcoming Bruce back to Disney.

It’ll be interesting to see how this shakeup plays out. Many Disney fans have been lamenting the lack of new attraction announcements lately, and with Universal’s Epic Universe right around the corner, Disney really needs to up its game.

Stay tuned for more details on this shakeup as we hear it.

[Source: Tech Crunch]