Veteran technology leader Aaron LaBerge will step down from his role as chief technology officer of Disney Entertainment and ESPN on July 1 and will transition into a new role as CTO for sports betting company Penn Entertainment.
The move is being spun amicably. In a memo to Disney staff, LaBerge said he's departing to assume a new role that will allow him to be “home for my family.” He also said that he’ll continue training direct report Chris Lawson, currently executive VP of content operations for Disney Entertainment and ESPN, to assume Disney's CTO role on an interim basis.
Also read: LaBerge Named CTO For Disney DTC Unit
LaBerge has spent more than 20 years at Disney across two terms, rejoining ESPN in 2013 after a five-year stint as co-founder and CEO of startup Fanzter. He assumed the CTO role at ESPN in 2015, adding oversight to Disney Entertainment in 2018.
LaBerge leads all Disney technology initiatives, including Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus.
“Having overseen a global organization of thousands of engineers, product developers, designers, technologists, and data scientists that created some of the largest scale and most successful media properties in the world, there is no better candidate to lead our Technology and Interactive division into its future,” Penn Entertainment president and CEO Jay Snowden said in a statement.
