Revealed: Key Disney Imagineer Behind New Park In Abu Dhabi

The designer behind the largest redevelopment of a Disney theme park in the company’s history is one of the key figures behind the look of its groundbreaking upcoming outpost in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Few entertainment destinations are as recognizable as Disney’s castle parks. Named after their centerpiece castle, they are surrounded by clearly-defined lands themed to different eras and regions of the world. It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know what they look like so when Disney unveiled the format for its park in Abu Dhabi last week it turned heads.

Not only is it hard to make out individual lands in the concept art but the castle itself isn’t in the middle of the park. Instead it is at the back, sitting right on the beach of the man-made Yas Island. The most breathtaking difference is the castle itself. Rather than being an amalgam of actual castles or being based on one from a famous fairytale, it looks like a stylized version of Elsa’s ice palace from Disney’s 2013 hit animated movie Frozen as this author reported in the Daily Mail.

Despite looking different to the typical castle parks, Disney confirmed that its new site will combine the company’s “iconic stories, characters and attractions with Abu Dhabi’s vibrant culture, stunning shorelines, and breathtaking architecture.” In an interview with Good Morning America, Disney’s chief executive Bob Iger confirmed that the avant-garde castle shown on the concept art wasn’t a placeholder as he said it will indeed “be the first real modern castle that we built.”

It has had a magic touch as praise has flooded in from inside and outside Disney. Jakob Wahl, chief executive of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA), said he “can’t wait to see this happening” while Thomas Hecart, the supremely talented vice president of communication and public affairs at Disneyland Paris posted a statement on social media from Iger saying that the new park will blend “contemporary architecture with cutting-edge technology to offer guests deeply immersive entertainment experiences in unique and modern ways.” There is good reason why the park looks so spellbinding.

Theme parks are at the heart of a strategy by the UAE government to diversify its economy due to dwindling fossil fuel reserves. The government is essentially pouring the profits from oil into building a leisure infrastructure and it is paying off. The UAE’s GDP – the value of all of the goods and services it produces – rose 3.9% in 2024 and is forecast to grow by 4.7% in 2025 then by 5.7% in 2026.

According to the UAE’s central bank, this growth is being driven by its non-oil economy which rose 4.6% last year and is expected to increase by 5.1% in 2025. Abu Dhabi itself plans to boost visitor numbers to 39.3 million by 2030 in order to increase the amount that travel and tourism contributes to the UAE’s GDP. Disneyland Abu Dhabi is crucial to driving a great deal of this growth. The better the park, the more tourists it attracts and the more diversified the UAE’s economy becomes.

This explains why Iger made the bold claim to GMA that Disneyland Abu Dhabi will be “the most technologically advanced theme park that we’ve ever built.” Pulling this off requires manpower, not the wave of a magic wand. The architects in charge of achieving Iger’s aim are known as Imagineers, named after their imaginative use of engineering. There are aroiund 3,000 worldwide and they are responsible for designing Disney’s theme parks, attractions, hotels and cruise ships.

The Imagineers are already working on designing Disneyland Abu Dhabi and three key figures are driving the project. Right at the top is Imagineering’s chief creative officer Bruce Vaughn along with senior Creative Executive Tom Fitzgerald. Both have worked for Disney for more than 30 years and attended last week’s announcement in Abu Dhabi with Zach Riddley who is playing a key role in the project.

Riddley oversaw the recent overhaul of the Epcot park at Walt Disney World in Orlando which was the largest redevelopment of one of the Mouse’s outposts in the history of the company. Epcot is science-themed so it makes sense for Riddley to be involved with creating Disney’s most cutting-edge park yet.

The Princeton-educated architect was promoted just yesterday to senior vice president of global creative strategy for Imagineering but began his career in 2004 as a show designer when he reimagined the entire Disney California Adventure park which was applauded by fans and critics. Rising through Imagineering’s ranks, in 2017 he was promoted to overseeing the transformation of Epcot where he was the single accountable leader for the project, including master planning, story, concept, detailed design, delivery and construction elements. He is no stranger to a challenge as this involved leading a team of more than 500 members and 1,000 combined partners. Riddley secured approval for a groundbreaking level of investment in record time and it cast a powerful spell.

The transformation of Epcot included the development of Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, a revolutionary roller coaster which can turn to face screens as it zips along the track. Widely acclaimed by critics, the influential Blog Mickey even went as far as to describe it as “probably the single-greatest roller coaster at Walt Disney World.” Given its competition that is high praise indeed and it bodes well for Abu Dhabi.

It will of course take a lot more than just three people to create the park. Disney is currently undertaking the biggest-ever expansion of its theme parks with developments underway at all six of its current resorts around the world. Designing Disneyland Abu Dhabi will increase the workload so Imagineering will probably have to staff up. It could explain why Josh D’Amaro, Chairman of Disney’s Experiences theme park division, said at the announcement that “this project, together with our ambitious expansion plans in Florida and California, will create thousands of new jobs in the US as we enter into a new era of expansion.”

Three obvious choices are Eddie Sotto, Tom Morris and Jim Shull who are all Imagineering veterans with decades of experience. Sotto is the wizard behind the turn-of-the-century Main Street at Disneyland Paris, which is widely seen as one of the most elaborate lands in Disney history. Morris developed the park’s Sleeping Beauty castle which is comfortably one of the most iconic structures ever built by Disney. Shull is one of Imagineering’s most skilled artists and hasn’t just worked at Disneyland Paris but also Tokyo Disney which is renowned for being the world’s most immersive theme park resort. Crucially, all three now run their own businesses so they are in a position to take on the challenge.

Another logical choice would be Dave Cobb, a former Universal Studios designer who became creative director for Warner Bros. World on Yas Island. The park is run by Abu Dhabi government-backed Miral which will also operate Disneyland Abu Dhabi. As this report explained, Warner Bros. World broke new ground with its innovative design featuring rides hidden behind internal walls.

The choice of the new park’s general manager is much tougher as someone who seems to be the ideal candidate is already spoken for. University of Houston-educated Ignace Lahoud spent 26 years with Disney including a stint as chief financial officer of Disneyland Paris where he presided over one of the greatest periods of growth for the resort. He rose up to become executive vice president and chief financial officer of Disney Consumer Products & Interactive Media in California before he joined Dubai-based entertainment giant Majid Al Futtaim in 2021.

Lahoud is perhaps the only executive worldwide who has C-suite experience at a Disney park and theme parks in the UAE. As this report explained, Majid Al Futtaim operates the most popular indoor snow resorts in the Middle East as well as being the region’s biggest movie theater operator and distributing films from Universal and Warner Bros.

The man in charge of hiring is Miral’s visionary chief executive Mohamed Al Zaabi. The INSEAD-educated manager began his 25-year career in business working for the UAE government before switching to ALDAR Properties, Abu Dhabi’s biggest listed property developer where he rose to the role of director of strategic investment. This gave him high-level experience of the role real estate plays at the heart of the UAE’s economy and he put it to use when he moved to Miral in 2015.

Al Zaabi had a vision of making Yas Island a hub for the world’s leading theme parks but it took more than the wave of a magic wand to pull it off. His first step was to put together a team of the theme park industry’s top talent with many of them coming from the biggest operators, including Disney. Crucially, Al Zaabi is supported by HE Mohamed Al Mubarak, the chairman of Miral and Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT).

A graduate of Northeastern University in Boston, Al Mubarak is one of Abu Dhabi’s most prominent business figures having been chief executive of ALDAR before becoming chairman of the DCT where he has turned the city into a global cultural powerhouse. His pioneering approach brought the Louvre to Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island cultural district with a Guggenheim, a Natural History Museum and a National Museum also under construction. They all played a key role in convincing Disney to plant its flag in Abu Dhabi.

Contrary to some suggestions, Yas Island hasn’t become a powerhouse of the theme park industry by simply spending vast sums of money. Instead of taking whatever entertainment brands became available, as some other nations have done, Al Zaabi and Al Mubarak selected the renowned ones and ensured that each outpost in Abu Dhabi outdid the previous one as this report explained.

The journey began with Ferrari World Abu Dhabi in 2010 and was followed by Yas Waterworld three years later. The high caliber and innovation of those parks encouraged Warner Bros. and SeaWorld to bring theme parks to Yas Island with the former the first to open in 2018. It quickly became the world’s most popular indoor theme park and that convinced Warner Bros. to make Yas Island the location of the first Harry Potter theme park rides outside Universal Studios. In turn, this all got Disney’s attention.

When Miral began looking into attracting Disney to Yas Island around 2019 it reportedly code named the initiative ‘Project Mars’ because it was aiming much higher than just the stars. One team member involved with this says that it started with “quiet planning sessions and endless creative discussions” but the goal was lofty. It wasn’t just about securing a Disney theme park but, according to Abdulaziz Alkhoori, executive director of group strategy & transformation, the aim was also to make Yas Island “the top global entertainment destination – ‘Orlando 2.0’ as we like to refer to it.”

As they say, great minds think alike and as Miral launched its journey to Mars, Disney also began exploring Abu Dhabi. In an interview with CNBC, Iger said that Disney first started considering the area in 2017 or 2018 but Covid and a CEO change cast dark clouds over its expansion plans. Disney’s executive vice president of strategy, corporate development, mergers and acquisitions, planning & finance, Andy Hopkins, was crucial to it getting a happy ending and this earned him the nickname “the magic one” by Al Zaabi.

Hopkins started out in the early 1990s as an M&A analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston before joining Universal Studios where he provided senior executives with transaction support for acquisitions and contract negotiations in its music, movie, television and leisure businesses. He joined Disney in 2006 and has worked on some of its biggest transactions since then including the acquisitions of Lucasfilm and Marvel.

In January last year Hopkins was promoted to senior vice president, corporate strategy & business development where he sourced, incubated and negotiated Abu Dhabi Disneyland with Miral. It was all thanks to the building blocks put in place by Al Zaabi and Al Mubarak.

Last week Iger explained that Miral “demonstrated a number of things that were really important to us. One, a real appreciation of quality and innovation and appreciation of the arts and creativity and a huge commitment to new technology. And we were impressed with all of that. We also looked at what they’ve already built between the Louvre that’s already built, the Guggenheim which is going up and incredible other experiences, the architecture here as well. And everywhere we look, we basically were convinced that this was a perfect place for us.

“And then in Miral, our partners, we immediately bonded with them in many respects, spoke the same language and basically, we both have a real appreciation of our history and our legacy, but moving forward and being forward thinking and innovating is also part of our basically our DNA.”

Iger added that he had visited Abu Dhabi three times in the past nine months and it’s no surprise that he fell under its spell. By the time that he visited, Miral had begun operating hotels, including the world’s first Warner Bros. property which makes a splash as this report explained. Moreover, the latest park on Yas Island – SeaWorld Abu Dhabi – is like an ultra upscale version of Disney’s Living Seas pavilion at Epcot.

Given the waves that Miral is making, it’s no surprise that the cream of the crop in Hollywood wanted to see what it is doing. Testimony to this, in February, Al Zaabi posted a photo on Instagram of a visit from Jeffrey Katzenberg who co-founded Dreamworks before selling it to Universal Studios in 2016.

By the time of his visit, Universal’s theme park division was on a roll. Next week it will open Epic Universe, it’s biggest theme park in Orlando and it is also developing two other sites in the United Kingdom and Frisco, Texas with one in Delhi believed to be under consideration. Disney was at risk of being left behind by this wave of new parks but it stopped that from happening on April 29 this year when it signed the deal with Miral.

Disney’s stock had been in the doldrums for the previous six months and by the start of this month was trading at $90.81, 54.5% down from its peak just four years ago. Massive losses on its streaming platform and battles with authorities in Florida had disenchanted investors. They were badly in need of some Disney magic and Miral provided it.

Disney’s stock surged 10.8% to close at $102.09 when the new park was announced last Wednesday. As Miral will fund, develop, build and operate the park Disney won’t have to put any cash into it but receives royalties from the use of its Intellectual Property as well as tickets and merchandise. It is a similar model to Tokyo Disney where the royalties are believed to come to more than a quarter of a billion dollars annually so it’s no wonder that it was music to investors’ ears.

For Miral it was the culmination of a 15-year strategy which proves that theme parks aren’t just attractions – they can build nations and secure their futures.

My colleague and I are the only journalists worldwide who specialize in writing about the theme park industry for national media and we have been doing this since covering the opening of the Walt Disney Studios park in Paris in 2002. As this archive shows, we have written for more than 30 leading outlets around the world including the BBC, The Times of London, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Independent, and the London Evening Standard.

Thanks to our network of contacts, we were tipped off about the Abu Dhabi park by an extremely senior source from outside the UAE and broke the news on social media the week before the announcement. Our report previewing the announcement was met with scepticism from fans with Disney Tourist Blog saying “I’ll eat my words here if this gets announced with detailed aerial concept art.” Laughing Place, another Disney fan site, described the Abu Dhabi park as a “plausible impossible” before it removed its report.

One of the websites which trusted my exclusive was industry stalwart Screamscape. Its sources corroborated the news and the website wrote that “according to a Tweet from Movieconomics, Disney may be working on something for Abu Dhabi that could be announced very soon, possibly next week.”

Like many major Disney projects, this one has attracted critics with even the esteemed New York Times getting in on the act.

The difference this time is that the criticisms lack substance except for one – the challenge of dealing with heat, but Miral may have a trick up its sleeve to address that as this report explained.

The criticism has covered almost all quarters. One observer claimed that “Disney is doing is just for the money”. Far from it in fact as the company had far fewer parks in the Europe, Middle East, India and Africa region than any other so it is under-served there.

According to IAAPA, attractions in the Middle East and parts of Africa generated $24.3 billion in revenue in 2023 and grew by more than $470 million last year so it was a significant gap in Disney’s map. The UAE is located within a four-hour flight of one-third of the world’s population making it the perfect place to attract this audience.

Indeed, Disney didn’t choose Miral for its first Middle East theme park because Abu Dhabi needed Disney but because Disney needed a partner with credibility, capability and consistency. So it’s a win for Disney and a win for the UAE as it diversifies its economy.

Other fans expressed concerns about visiting on grounds of safety which couldn’t be much more unfounded. The UAE ranks second on lists of the world’s safest countries compiled by Global Finance magazine and crowd-sourced database Numbeo. You only have to spend a few hours in Abu Dhabi to see why.

When I first moved to the UAE several years ago I was astonished to see people leaving their phones charging in sockets outside shops as they went inside to buy something. It is even common for people to leave their phones or handbags on tables in busy food courts to hold their seats whilst they go to order their food. Open-top supercars worth (literally) millions are left parked on the streets at night next to palm trees wrapped in sparkling lights. So even in the middle of the night you’re never far from a shot worthy of Instagram.

The Disneyland Abu Dhabi announcement event delivered plenty of them as it had all the glitz and glamour of a movie premiere. A mass of celebrities, including Naomi Campbell and Gossip Girl’s Ed Westwick, watched as superstar pianist Lang Lang played classic Disney tunes accompanied by a 100-piece orchestra floating on a pontoon on the Arabian Gulf. In the sky above, more than 9,000 drones formed the shape of Cinderella’s Castle. It was put together with staggering speed to maintain secrecy.

Diane Gallacher, chief operating officer of events organizer HQ Worldwide Shows says there “was so much to do within a very short time period and as always the team were phenomenal and delivered to the highest standards.” Our friend Robert Niles, editor of ThemeparkInsider, added that at the announcement “they handed out swag bags, but there was not one item with Disney Abu Dhabi branding. No shirts, hats, bags or even cards. The prep for this was tight. No time for making merch. And no leaks that a big merch order might cause.”

Now that the cat is out of the bag, Miral is making the most of it with adverts for the upcoming park across Yas Island and even as far afield as New York. That really is a happy ending.