Kareem Daniel and the rise and fall of the Disney executive who helped define the Bob Chapek era
For more than a decade, Kareem Daniel faithfully followed the Walt Disney Co. script for success.
The 48-year-old executive had a Stanford MBA. He started as an intern and held key leadership roles with divisions including the Imagineers, the vaunted designers of theme park rides. He was a movie buff and an unabashed fan of Disney properties — his favorite toy as a boy was the Millennium Falcon, the hulking spaceship from "Star Wars."
His ascent accelerated in 2020 when his mentor, Bob Chapek, became Disney's chief executive. Daniel was tapped to run consumer products, and five months later, he hurdled over more experienced executives to lead a massive new and controversial business unit.
For Disney's Black employees, Daniel's rise was a point of pride. His promotion came after a summer of protests over the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and media companies were under the microscope for their lack of diversity in the C-suite.
"There was an African American male at the top — that was huge," said a former Disney executive who wasn't authorized to speak publicly. "It seemed that he was suddenly in the succession line."
He was the czar in charge of $30 billion a year in
