Disney Entertainment, ESPN Tap Andre Rohe to Lead Product Engineering Division

Disney Entertainment and ESPN have hired Andre Rohe as their new executive vice president of product engineering.

The former Meta, YouTube and Google engineering executive, who will report directly to chief product and technology officer Adam Smith, will lead the new division that will bring together its product engineering, media engineering, QA and commerce, growth and identity engineering teams into a single unit focused on digital products and platforms.

“Andre is an incredibly talented technologist that brings not only a deep background in managing world-class engineering teams and years of expertise in scaled recommendation and product personalization, but also a truly collaborative spirit,” Smith said in a Thursday statement. “He’s a great addition to Disney and ESPN, leading an outstanding team and working alongside other technologists and leaders in our media businesses. His skill and leadership will add to our capacity to innovate and elevate the impact that our products have on global audiences.”

Rohe joins after over two decades leading Meta, YouTube, Google and Tabula’s engineering teams, where he has driven work in recommendations, personalization, AI, machine learning, big data and more across news, entertainment and video. 

“Disney is an incredible company, and one that has touched the lives of so many people, myself included,” Rohe added. “It’s exciting to be a part of that and to reunite with Adam, and it’s humbling to have the opportunity to lead this great team of engineers as we work to shape the future of how people around the world engage with entertainment and sports.”

Rohe’s appointment comes as Disney+ recently unveiled an ESPN+ tile in December, following the successful integration of Hulu earlier in 2024. It has also embarked on a password-sharing crackdown across its three streaming services, which has rolled out in over 130 countries and plans to improve its content recommendation capabilities to boost engagement.

Looking ahead, Disney will launch a fully direct-to-consumer version of ESPN’s linear network in the fall — internally codenamed Flagship — packaging its sports programming with fantasy sports integrations, enhanced statistics, betting features and e-commerce.

During Disney’s fourth quarter earnings call in November, CEO Bob Iger revealed that the entertainment giant had slowed its content investment in the Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia-Pacific regions as it works to improve its streaming technology.

“If we can use technology to reduce churn, which we’re already doing, then in reality, what we’re doing is we’re increasing return on our investment in content, so we don’t want to spend on the content side until we’re confident that we can get the necessary returns on those investments,” he said at the time.

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