Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS) has tapped Democratic Party communications specialist Kristina Schake as executive vice president of global communications.
Spreading The Word: Schake was most recently in charge of the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine education campaign, according to a Variety report. Earlier in her career, she worked as deputy communications director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and served in the Obama administration as special assistant to the president and communications director for First Lady Michelle Obama.
Schacke worked in the private sector as global communications director at Instagram, one of the social media sites operated by Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:FB). She also ran a public affairs and strategic communications firm with Chad Griffin, a former president of the Human Rights Campaign, and co-founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which worked to overturn California’s Proposition 8, which was voted into law in 2008 to ban same-sex marriage within the state.
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What Happens Next: In her new jobs, Schacke will report to chief corporate affairs officer Geoff Morrell, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and press secretary for the Department of Defense during the George W. Bush administration. And while Schacke and Morrell come from different sides of the political spectrum, there was no sign of partisan divide in the announcement of her hiring.
“I could not be more pleased to welcome Kristina to Disney and to have her leading communications for the company,” Morrell said in a press statement. “Her experience in the public and private sectors, in political and corporate campaigns, make her ideally suited for this important role and to help me integrate communications with government relations, public policy, and corporate social responsibility into a new corporate affairs team.”
Schacke’s arrival comes at a time when Disney has found itself in a political quagmire over Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation. CEO Bob Chapek somehow had both sides of that debate denouncing him, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dismissing Chapek’s company as “woke” for his belated public criticism of the legislation and the Human Rights Campaign rejecting a Disney donation because it felt Chapek didn't do enough to show his support for the LGBTQ community.
Photo courtesy of Disney.
