Page 23 - CA Mini-Networking Bios

John Solaro is the Vice President of Design, UX, and Product Innovation for DTCI Design, the
central design organization of the DTCI Technology org. In this role he oversees the design and
user experience of all DTCI Technology apps and websites, including ABC, ABC News, 23
American Idol, Disney.com, DisneyNOW, ESPN, ESPN Fantasy, FiveThirtyEight, Oscars, OTV,
Star Wars, and more.

John manages a team of 60 Product Designers with skills spanning UX/Interaction, Visual,
Motion, Production, and UX Engineering. He partners closely with Engineering, Product, PMO,
Analytics, Marketing, and User Research, to concept, design, build, and ship digital
experiences. Large,V1 products and quick, iterative releases on existing products are shipped
on regular intervals throughout the year.

The digital products John’s team makes enable viewers to watch all forms of content on web,
mobile, tablet, and OTT/TV devices. Users can also play games, such as Disney Channels
Worldwide IP games and ESPN Fantasy sports products.

John is always focused on finding the balance between successful, high morale teams and
shipping as many high quality, user focused products as possible that drive business results. He
also strives to bring the entire design community at Disney together by being the executive
sponsor of events like the company wide Product Design & UX Summit, an annual two day
gathering of hundreds of Designers from across TWDC.

Before joining The Walt Disney Company in July 2016, John worked at Microsoft for 13 years in
both Product and Design leadership roles.

JOHN SOLARO Most recently, John ran the Xbox Design Studio, overseeing the design and user experience of
Xbox platform software products. He worked on products ranging from the Xbox One and Xbox
360 console dashboards to Xbox mobile apps, Kinect, and Xbox VR. Before John’s time in
Vice President, Design, UX, and Product Xbox, he ran the Product team for Encarta.com and the Encarta DVD product suites.

Innovation Prior to Microsoft, John got his professional start at drugstore.com, focusing on product and
Direct to Consumer & International, DTCI user experience features for ecommerce.

Technology
John graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and grew up
near Cleveland, OH. He currently lives in Burbank, CA, with his wife, whom he travels with as
often as they can.