http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orl-bk-biz-disney111405,0,5153112.story?coll=orl-news-headlines

QuikQuote: Longtime Walt Disney World President Al Weiss is getting a promotion to oversee worldwide park operations as Walt Disney Co. announced this evening that it is reorganizing the way the Parks and Resorts Division operates. Weiss, who has headed the Orlando theme parks since 1994, was promoted to the newly created position of President, Worldwide Operations. He will continue to oversee Walt Disney World on an interim basis until a successor is appointed, the company said.
Rasulo said he also will now have direct oversight of creative development at Walt Disney Imagineering, Research and Development and Walt Disney parks and Resorts Online.

Wow, waytago Al.

Re: consolidation of groups under Al. Does anybody else see WDPRO and WDI becoming one unit?

Re: Al moving up and out. Paging Lee Cockerell, office for one. (Just a guess....)

Is this a promotion, lateral, or domotion for Rasulo? It doesn't seem like a promotion but it may have more cache.

Not a promotion. He's just shuffling the chairs underneath him. I think that he already had WDI, R&D and WDPRO, so it's just reorganizing the group under him to be a coherent "committee" and get them working together more closely.

Oh, and another prediction: Destination Disney goes worldwide.

Yes, it is clearer when I actually read the article.

Here is a related article...

http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?duid=mtfh4568 2_2005-11-15_01-54-03_n14445025_newsml



Walt Disney Co's theme parks unit on Monday said it was reorganizing to create an eight-member executive committee that would develop strategy and report to parks chief Jay Rasulo.
Disney's new Chief Executive Bob Iger has increased responsibilities and powers of the various business segments. The new parks structure is aimed at letting the group rapidly roll out new projects and increase consistency of business practices throughout the unit, Disney said.
Rasulo will also take direct oversight of the parks online operations and of the Imagineering group, which designs attractions.
The committee will include parks human resources head Meg Crofton, international development head Nick Franklin, Imagineering President Don Goodman, public affairs head Leslie Goodman, parks Chief Financial Officer Jim Hunt, who will also be responsible for technology, global marketing head Michael Mendenhall, and Al Weiss, current Walt Disney World president, who will take on a new position as president, Worldwide Operations.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/orl-asecdisney15111505nov15,0,3274662.story?coll=sfla-news-florida



Weiss said in a telephone interview Monday night that he is looking forward to taking on added responsibilities and will remain in Orlando, where Disney is the area's largest employer at 57,000 workers.

"My role is taking the best ideas and making sure they transfer to the other sites as quickly and efficiently as possible," Weiss said. He said in his new position all theme-park presidents will report to him and that he is not expecting other executives to relocate to Orlando.

Weiss said the new global emphasis from a business and operating standpoint does not mean that the parks around the world will become uniform.

"They're going to continue to stay very unique," he said.

I think they should think twice about promoting someone that uses the phrase "very unique"...

-Jeff

I don't see the point of doing this after reading the article. It seemed like what they had previously been doing was working out fine so why change their system?

It consolidates all of the parks into one unit reporting to Jay Rasulo, who also oversees Imagineering, and it also appears to separate operations from finance/IT/research, HR, public affairs, and global marketing. Basically, it makes it fewer park units that Rasulo has to manage separately. Instead, he manages Al Weiss, who in turn manages the separate park units.