Lisa Becket wants everyone to experience the nostalgia of Disney IRL

Many American girls grow up imagining themselves as Disney princesses—but not Lisa Becket, who always imagined herself as part of the behind-the-scenes teams that made the magic possible. This aspiration started at seven years old. Growing up in the frigid winters of Batavia, Illinois, her first trip to Disney World in Orlando felt like a dream. “We came in March for spring break and my mom had dressed us in wool and as soon as we got here, we were stripping down,” she says with a laugh. “We couldn’t believe it was so warm!”

That initial visit started a love affair with the company (and Florida’s balmy weather) that continues today. However, landing in her current role as one of the company’s top executives was a winding path. After getting rejected by Disney twice—first for the company’s All-American Band as a high schooler and later as an engineer—she decided to attend business school. But there was a catch: She only applied to schools from which she knew Disney actively recruited. After graduating from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, her decades-long goal finally came to fruition. She was hired as a middle manager in the company’s marketing department, where she has remained for more than 20 years.

During that time, Becket has risen to become the executive vice president of global marketing for Disney Experiences. This role makes her a force at the company, which recently announced a $60B investment into the division—one of its most lucrative, as other parts of the company, such as its Disney+ streaming platform, have struggled.

Becket oversees all strategic marketing for Disney’s theme parks, cruises, and guided vacation tours. In many ways, she has grown alongside the department. When she started, Disney had one cruise ship and two theme parks: Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Park, in Anaheim, California. Now, the company has five cruise ships and parks across the world, including Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.

While Disney has kept many of the details of its billion-dollar investment into Experiences under wraps, they have announced that the expansion plan will include an additional 14 acres of a theme park at its already sprawling Florida site. On a recent visit, one could see construction in huge bursts throughout the park, from Splash Mountain, which closed in 2023 and will reopen as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, to an updated Polynesian Villas and Bungalows.

As the expansion gears up, Becket’s team will be responsible for maintaining Disney’s core consumers while appealing to younger, diverse audiences. “Everything is in turbocharge mode,” she says of their efforts to expand rapidly across theme parks, cruise ships, and Disney vacation packages.

However, for the past two years, that major investment hung in the balance after an intense dispute between the Walt Disney Company and Florida’s Republican Governor, Ron DeSantis. In 2022, DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education Act into law. Also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, it has since expanded to include all kindergarten through eighth-grade classrooms. The law bans discussions of gender and sexuality in public school classrooms and has had a “chilling effect” on queer students and teachers, according to many in the state.

After protests led by LGBTQ employees, Disney’s previous CEO, Bob Chapek, came out against the law, saying that the company had “opposed the bill from the outset.”

Governor DeSantis responded with fury: “If Disney wants to pick a fight, they chose the wrong guy,” he wrote in an email to supporters. Since then, the Governor has made a career out of attacking institutions that safeguard conversations about racial identity and queerness. For many Floridians, DeSantis’ stance on Disney was surprising. The state has long prided itself on a pro-business image and supplemented its lack of income tax with tourist dollars—and Disney was at the heart of that revenue stream. In 2022 alone, the company generated $40B in economic impact across the state. In a lawsuit over the company’s special tax status, Disney described the DeSantis administration as “anti-business” and “anti-Florida.”

Ultimately, the threat of losing Disney’s business seemed to calm the turmoil. Last spring, Disney pulled the plug on a $1B office complex that would have created 2,000 new jobs with an average salary of $120,000 in the Orlando metropolitan area, which surrounds Walt Disney World. The office complex was part of Disney’s broader investments in Walt Disney World, and the company made it clear that the entire investment was on the line. After a judge threw out Disney’s lawsuit against the state, the two parties claimed to be attempting to move forward amicably. Meanwhile, the bulldozers in the park continue to roll on.

As one of the few queer people in executive leadership at Disney, Becket has been at the forefront of ensuring Disney’s LGBTQ staff have felt included and heard throughout the turmoil. “My approach [during this time] has been to be my authentic self and talk openly about who I am,” Becket says. “You’re never going to perform to your ultimate potential unless you feel like you can be yourself.”

This includes leading the company’s Pride 365 Collective, which Becket describes as a vehicle to ensure employees feel supported and seen throughout the year. “I believe that our cast knows that they can depend on us for that unwavering support,” she says.

Additionally, as a member of Out and Equal’s Board, Becket will welcome the organization’s annual Workplace Summit to Walt Disney World in October. When we spoke in May, Becket was at her office in Celebration, Florida, where she has pictures of her wife—who is also an executive at Disney—and their two daughters, ages 9 and 11, hanging on the walls. “I’ve got pictures of my family all over my office. I talk about the good, the bad, the struggles, the joy of our little family that is just as normal as any other family.”

Ultimately, Becket hopes to share the type of experiences that brought her family together as a child. After their first visit to Disney, she says her mother, who was a teacher, diligently saved up so that they could return every three years. Becket holds those memories dear and is attempting to pass them on to her kids, too. Her 11-year-old even had the chance to visit Antarctica as part of a Disney experience—a full-circle moment for Becket, who can still recall that first, radiantly warm visit.

Becket is perhaps her own best case study for the type of marketing Disney is attempting to do: creating childhood experiences that stick with people throughout their lives and inspire them to continue returning to Disney as adults. Amidst the turmoil, her vision for a company where everyone is welcome remains a moral imperative—and plain old good business.