Charita Carter, The First African-American Woman Executive Producer Of Walt Disney Imagineering

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Charita Carter is Walt Disney Imagineering’s first African-American female executive producer. Carter was hired as part of Disney’s effort to become more inclusive and diverse.

According to Forbes, she is in charge of creating, collaborating, and developing Disney Parks experiences from concept to execution in her new portfolio. Her promotion to executive producer is no fluke.

Before her new role, she held the position of senior creative producer and development manager of Walt Disney Imagineering‘s Scenic Illusion team. Imagineering ” is the branch of the Disney company that comes up with the ideas and the execution for [its] parks, for [its] cruise ships, and for [its]shows.”

In her position, she led the team to develop new applications and techniques to “furnish designers efficiently with multiple storytelling capabilities.” They granted more than 20 patents to the Walt Disney Company and implemented attractions for Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and Tokyo Disney Resort under her watch.

“She also produced the critically-acclaimed Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the premier ride-through in the history of the parks to feature Mickey and Minnie Mouse,” according to Forbes.

She was a senior accountant at Disney prior to joining the Imagineering team. She also served as the Creative Development Division’s finance manager and strategic business partner, and later as the Blue Sky Strategic Initiatives development manager before rising to the position of show producer.

In total, she has spent 25 years with Walt Disney Imagineering. She previously worked as a general ledger accountant before joining Disney. When her company was bought out, a friend who worked for Disney Imagineering encouraged her to apply for one of their accounting positions.

On the day of her interview, she overheard the accounting director tell two people who were working in the accounting department that they were making a transition to creative, which sounded unorthodox to her.

“When I came to interview, the accounting director asked me to hang out for a minute because he was running a little late. Of course, I would hang out all day because I was looking for a job. But I was able to listen to the conversation that he was trying to wrap up, and it was two individuals who had worked in finance, and they were transitioning to creative,” she said.

“I thought that was the most bizarre thing I had ever heard of, but little did I know, within about ten years, that would be partially my story.”

Today, Carter is the team leader and producer of [Princess] Tiana to both Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. Carter, who grew up in Southern California, has a degree in Accounting from California State University Northridge.

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