Episode #2

To Infinity and Beyond

Interview with: Ken Potrock

President at Disney Resort

While the 100th Years Anniversary celebration of the Walt Disney Company in Disneyland has started a couple of weeks ago, Ken Potrok is opening up about his professional journey at Disney – how it started, and how challenging it was to become the President of Disneyland, at the very beginning of the pandemic.

The personal brand for me was built upon all of those different jobs and experiences that had taught me different things. Sometimes it was marketing, sometimes it was sales, finance, operations, or creative content development. But along the journey, I got experience in all of those areas, and that was building my brand. And so when I got to Disneyland, as intimidating as it was, that we were closed, and all of these people were home, I felt very confident that I had the skill sets and the experience to be able to manage through this real gigantic disruption.

says Ken Potrock, President at Disney Resort

The topics discussed with Ken include:

leading a 34.000-employees organization, that includes six generations,
company culture and belonging – creating a Disney difference,
extraordinary educational program for the company’s employees,
the “zig-zag career path”, that provides a set of skills helpful in succeeding in crisis-oriented situations,
the role of the family and the Polish roots,
the cost you pay for having the career you want,
the dark sides of leadership and situations that might break you up.

To Infinity and Beyond

Leader’s legacy

Łukasz Chałaczkiewicz