Disney+’s Michael Cerda On Why Corporate Culture Matters in Business

Every company has a corporate culture. This culture can foster innovation and a fresh exchange of ideas or it can promote selfishness and backbiting which will damage the bottom line of any business. Sensitivity to the culture of a business goes beyond mere awareness; it’s about actively adapting and responding to create the culture that you want to represent your brand. This is crucial for building successful, respectful, and inclusive working environments and for creating products and services that resonate with a diverse customer base. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Cerda.

Michael Cerdá is a veteran product and technology leader who has served as Chief Product Officer and executive at several of the world’s most influential companies. As VP of Product for Disney Streaming, he helped launch Disney+ to over 100 million subscribers. Previously, he was Chief Project Officer at Goldman Sachs’ Marcus division, Chief Experience Officer at Live Nation/Ticketmaster, and Director of Product at Facebook. He has also founded multiple venture-backed startups and holds two technology patents. His new book, Build Something: Building Products, Business & Culture — A Journey of Hard-Won Lessons and Impactful Outcomes (Feb. 20, 2025), reveals the untold true stories behind some of the most transformative technologies of our time. Learn more at www.build-something.com.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about Why Corporate Culture Matters in Business, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I’ve spent my career building products, businesses, and teams at the intersection of media, technology, and entertainment. I’ve led product and engineering at companies like Facebook, Vevo, and Disney, and most recently, I built and scaled Vix, the world’s largest Spanish-language streaming service. I have also spent most of my life playing music in working bands. That experience shaped my leadership philosophy: great teams, like great bands, have to be in sync, trust each other, and share a vision. Culture has always been at the heart of what I build, and that’s a major theme in my book, Build Something.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

One that stands out is when I was at Facebook working on a strategy to put news into the Facebook newsfeed. There were a lot of aspects to this:

*How to acquire enough signal from a given Facebook user, to know what kind of news they want to see?

*Which publisher(s), ie CNN or Fox, New York Times or Washington Post?

*Which formats of news do they want to see, ie articles, video, images, live?

*What things could we do to make each user a “productive user” in the Facebook system, ie how to drive commenting, sharing, etc?

*How to incentivize news publishers to publish their coveted content in Facebook?

*How to prove to news publishers that Facebook was the best place to publish, even better than Twitter and/or their own sites/apps?

But all that seems very tactical compared to the biggest question which I framed to Mark Zuckerberg in a review of this strategy in 2014. What is (was) Facebook’s role in “delivering the right news to the right people at the right time”? Moreover what is (was) Facebook’s responsibility in so doing?

When I suggested some of these to Mark, he had a bit of a negative reaction: “Why, we’re just plumbing the content to whoever wants it”. (I’m summarizing, as it was a longer conversation).

Needless to say, we executed this strategy, and this may have been the most evident entry point contributor to the largest echo chambers ever created in modern civilization. And as such the biggest social divide in recent history.

To me this is interesting because it examines the role of high powered tech companies, and how their decisions — whether intentional or not — shape society at an unprecedented scale. At the time, we were focused on engagement metrics, user experience, and making Facebook the most compelling place for people to consume and interact with news. What we didn’t fully grasp, or perhaps didn’t prioritize enough, was the long-term impact of algorithmic curation on public discourse, polarization, and even democracy itself.

This experience reinforced a fundamental lesson for me: when you build something at scale, culture and responsibility must be as much a part of the strategy as growth and engagement. The decisions made in that room in 2014 still reverberate today, and they serve as a reminder that product leaders have to think beyond short-term success — we have to consider the unintended consequences of our innovations and ask, Just because we can build it, should we?

You are a successful individual. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. Hustle Mindset — I had my first child while still in college, and that completely changed my approach to work and life. I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for opportunities to come to me — I had to create them. That sense of urgency, of needing to figure things out fast, has stuck with me ever since. Whether it was bootstrapping my own company, moving into leadership roles in major corporations, or launching large-scale products, I’ve always operated with the mindset that there’s no time to waste. That drive has kept me pushing forward, solving problems faster, and outworking the competition.
2. Adaptive Innovation — Innovation often comes from adapting to the moment and challenging long-held assumptions. When I was at Disney+, we introduced Premier Access, which was a new endeavor I championed during the pandemic to sell theatrical releases, which couldn’t be made available in theaters anymore due to lockdown, on Disney+, breaking the traditional theatrical window. This was a bold and unconventional move, especially in an industry deeply rooted in theatrical-first distribution. But during the pandemic, it became both an innovative business model and a service to audiences who were longing for something new to watch. It reinforced that real innovation isn’t just about technology — it’s about rethinking models, challenging norms, and responding decisively to the moment.
3. Empowerment — I’ve always believed that the best leaders don’t micromanage — they empower people to do their best work. At Goldman Sachs, when I was building the consumer bank Marcus, I structured teams around shared outcomes rather than rigid functions. For example, I built a growth product team focused on testing hypotheses to improve conversion metrics, directly driving business throughput. At the same time, I formed an engagement product team to increase customer lifetime value by building tools like financial health trackers. By giving teams ownership over their goals and the autonomy to execute, we fostered a culture where people were deeply invested in their work, leading to stronger impact and faster innovation.

How do you define corporate culture in the context of your business, and why is it important for your company’s success?

Corporate culture is the foundation of everything. It’s not about perks or mission statements — it’s the collective behaviors, values, and mindset that shape how people show up every day, how decisions are made, and how teams operate under pressure. Culture dictates how employees interact, solve problems, and drive the business forward. It’s the unwritten but deeply felt force that aligns teams, reinforces priorities, and sustains momentum, even in times of uncertainty.

A strong culture enables innovation, trust, and execution at scale. It empowers teams to take ownership, move fast, and challenge the status quo without fear. In a high-growth environment like streaming, where competition is fierce and user expectations evolve daily, culture determines whether a company thrives or stagnates. Without a culture that embraces agility, accountability, and a relentless focus on the user, even the best strategy will fall flat.

More practically, culture manifests in decision-making frameworks, collaboration styles, and the way leadership communicates and sets expectations. It’s what allows a company to scale without losing its core identity. When done right, culture attracts top talent, reduces friction in execution, and creates an environment where people do the best work of their careers. It’s not a “nice to have” — it’s the operating system of the business, and without a strong one, everything else struggles to function.

Can you share an experience where corporate culture impacted a business decision or client relationship (positive or negative)?

Corporate culture played a pivotal role in shaping one of the most important product decisions we made at Vevo. At the time, our business was primarily about distributing music videos to YouTube, our own apps, and websites. The core user experience revolved around search — users would look for a specific music video, watch it, and maybe watch another before moving on. That model worked well on mobile and desktop, but as the digital living room emerged with connected TVs, we had to rethink how people would engage with music videos in a completely different context.

The challenge was clear: searching for a three-minute video over and over using a remote was frustrating and impractical. Instead of forcing users to adapt to an old model that wasn’t suited for the TV experience, we needed to rethink how music video consumption should work in this new environment. What allowed us to make this shift wasn’t just recognizing the problem — it was the culture we had built at Vevo. We had fostered an environment that encouraged empowerment and big-picture thinking. Instead of being stuck in our existing distribution model, our teams felt ownership over the experience and were encouraged to challenge assumptions.

That empowerment led us to create Vevo TV, a continuous-play, genre-based video experience designed specifically for the living room. Instead of requiring users to search repeatedly, we gave them channels organized by genre — just like traditional television. Users could simply select a genre and lean back as a curated stream of music videos played automatically. This transformed engagement: instead of 1–3 video views per session, we saw users watching 30 videos per session on average.

This was a defining moment that showcased how culture directly impacts business decisions. Had our culture been one of rigid execution rather than exploration, we might have simply optimized search for TV rather than reimagining the experience. Instead, by encouraging innovation, we created a solution that fundamentally changed how people consumed music videos in the living room — boosting engagement, session length, and overall watch time. That decision helped future-proof Vevo’s place in the digital living room and demonstrated how a strong culture of empowerment and adaptability leads to game-changing outcomes.

What strategies do you employ to monitor and enhance corporate culture within your team or organization?

• Radical Transparency — Regular all-hands meetings where leadership shares wins, losses, and priorities. Weekly standups with direct reports to do the same, but on an even deeper basis.
• Cross-Team Collaboration — Ensuring product, engineering, and business teams are in lockstep. I love a ceremony I call “Product Alignment Weekly”, which basically encourages all the cross-functional teams to have an opportunity to align on product priorities and review major decisions often. It’s kind of irresistible.
• Clear Values — Defining cultural pillars that guide hiring, promotions, and decision-making. I love using Communications, Accountability and Profitability as those pillars. Like, do those things really well, and all will be great.
• Listening — Regular pulse surveys, town halls, and one-on-ones to understand team sentiment. There’s no feedback not worth hearing. Even if you don’t value it, someone else does, which means you should too. You can’t do corporate culture well without listening and truly considering all perspectives.

How do you handle situations where the executives may not be aware of corporate culture in mid-management?

It happens more than people think. The key is creating feedback loops — skip-level meetings, anonymous surveys, and making culture part of performance reviews. Leadership needs to be intentional about staying connected to all levels of the organization. But it’s also about being a good example. Mid-managers tend to draft on their leaders, so the job of the upper-manager is to show them what good looks like. And what’s more is celebrating that often reinforces the criticality of this value.

Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Ways Corporate Culture Boosts a Business’s Bottom Line?”

1. Greater Achievement of Company Goals

Strong corporate cultures align employee actions with strategic objectives by:

• Creating clarity around priorities and decision-making frameworks
• Establishing shared values that guide behavior when specific rules don’t exist
• Reducing the need for micromanagement as employees internalize “how we do things here”
• Building consensus around organizational direction, minimizing resistance to initiatives
• Enabling faster execution as teams understand what matters and why

2. Magnified Impact of Business Outcomes

A strong corporate culture amplifies results by:

• Encouraging employees to go beyond minimum requirements to deliver exceptional results
• Creating momentum where success breeds further success
• Attracting like-minded customers who resonate with company values
• Building market differentiation through consistent customer experiences
• Enabling premium pricing based on reputation and perceived value

3. Enhanced Collaboration Driving Efficiency

Collaborative cultures improve operational efficiency through:

• Breaking down departmental silos that cause duplication and miscommunication
• Reducing friction in cross-functional projects and initiatives
• Facilitating knowledge sharing and best practice adoption
• Encouraging creative problem-solving through diverse perspectives
• Minimizing costly political maneuvering and turf protection

4. Heightened Employee Investment and Accountability

When employees feel connected to the culture, they demonstrate:

• Greater personal responsibility for outcomes
• Increased discretionary effort beyond job descriptions
• More initiative in identifying and solving problems
• Stronger commitment to quality and customer satisfaction
• Willingness to represent the company positively in external contexts

5. Improved Employee Morale and Retention

Strong cultures enhance workforce stability through:

• Creating meaningful work environments that satisfy deeper needs beyond compensation
• Building social bonds that make leaving more difficult
• Reducing stress through predictable expectations and support systems
• Lowering recruitment and training costs by retaining institutional knowledge
• Attracting higher-quality candidates through positive reputation

In what ways has focusing on Corporate Culture given your business a competitive edge?

This is an interesting and challenging question for me, in particular because typically there’s strong corporate culture in the area in my purview, but it’s not always the case across the whole company. That said, even having a strong culture in my areas of purview has had a tremendous impact on things like speed to building things, quality of product experience, having a growth mindset, and having a constant swing at the north star goals of the company. All of that combined helps a company with the various growth objectives a business has. That said none of it comes for free. Sometimes this can generate an us vs them dynamic, whereby those on my team are the ones that get to reside in a great culture, but other cross-functional partners may not. Inevitably some of “them” lean in and just want to be a part of the thing we’ve created, but others can feel left out at times, and actually resent it which can generate negative sentiment.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I’d champion a global movement to fundamentally reimagine how we measure success — beyond business into all aspects of life. Too many of us are trapped in an endless pursuit of titles, acquisitions, exits, and external validation. This narrow definition of achievement creates a culture where we sacrifice health, relationships, and meaning for fleeting accomplishments.

Instead, I believe true success lies in creating lasting impact, not just winning in the moment. This movement would encourage:

• Businesses to value sustainable growth over quarterly profits, prioritizing employee wellbeing and environmental stewardship alongside financial performance
• Educational systems that celebrate creativity, empathy, and problem-solving rather than standardized test scores
• Communities that recognize various forms of contribution beyond wealth accumulation
• Individuals to define personal success through purpose, relationships, and positive influence rather than material possessions or status

By shifting our collective focus from short-term wins to long-term value creation, we’d build more resilient businesses, stronger communities, and more fulfilling lives. The metrics would change from “how much can I accumulate?” to “what meaningful difference am I making?”

This isn’t about abandoning ambition — quite the opposite. It’s about channeling our drive toward deeper impact and creating a world where success is measured by how much value we create for others, not just ourselves. The most profound leadership legacy comes not from what you personally achieve, but from how many people you empower to achieve their own greatness.

How can our readers further follow you online?

You can follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I also keep a website called Build Something.

Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

About The Interviewer: Vanessa Ogle is a mom, entrepreneur, inventor, writer, and singer/songwriter. Vanessa’s talent in building world-class leadership teams focused on diversity, a culture of service, and innovation through inclusion allowed her to be one of the most acclaimed Latina CEO’s in the last 30 years. She collaborated with the world’s leading technology and content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Broadcom to bring innovative solutions to travelers and hotels around the world. Vanessa is the lead inventor on 120+ U.S. Patents. Accolades include: FAST 100, Entrepreneur 360 Best Companies, Inc. 500 and then another six times on the Inc. 5000. Vanessa was personally honored with Inc. 100 Female Founder’s Award, Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Enterprising Women of the Year among others. Vanessa now spends her time sharing stories to inspire and give hope through articles, speaking engagements and music. In her spare time she writes and plays music in the Amazon best selling new band HigherHill, teaches surfing clinics, trains dogs, and cheers on her children.

Please connect with Vanessa here on linkedin and subscribe to her newsletter Unplugged as well as follow her on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and X and of course on her website VanessaOgle.