Susan Dubiel Named VP of Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Disney’s Hollywood Studios is getting new leadership at the exact moment it needs it most. Susan Dubiel has been named Vice President of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, bringing more than 21 years at The Walt Disney Company.

She takes over a park in the middle of the largest construction project in its history.

Quick Summary

• Susan Dubiel is the new VP of Disney’s Hollywood Studios
• She has 21-plus years with the company
• Most recently General Manager of Park Operations at Magic Kingdom
• Jackie Swisher moves to VP – Park Operations, Development & Industrial Engineering
• Magic Kingdom and EPCOT also have new Park Operations General Managers

Susan Dubiel’s Background

Dubiel’s experience spans several areas of the company. She has held leadership roles in:

• Transportation Operations
• Textile Services
• Labor Forecasting & Planning
• Industrial Engineering
• Park Operations

Most recently, she served as General Manager of Park Operations at Magic Kingdom.

That Background Is Unusual, and Relevant

Park VP appointments often come from guest experience, entertainment, or merchandise. Dubiel’s route is different, and it says something about what the job requires right now.

Transportation Operations, Labor Forecasting & Planning, and Industrial Engineering are all capacity and throughput disciplines. They’re about moving people efficiently, staffing to demand, and making operations work under load.

Hollywood Studios has a well-documented capacity problem. It’s the smallest of the four Walt Disney World parks by usable acreage, and it has been the most crowded relative to its size since Toy Story Land and Galaxy’s Edge opened. Guest complaints about the park skew heavily toward queues, walkway congestion, and difficulty getting on attractions.

Appointing someone whose career is built on throughput engineering to run that park is a coherent decision, not a lateral shuffle.

Magic Kingdom Park Operations is also the strongest possible proving ground. It’s the busiest theme park in the world by attendance. Running its operations is arguably harder than running a smaller park outright.

Jackie Swisher’s New Role

Jackie Swisher, who previously held the Vice President – Parks role at Hollywood Studios, is also moving.

Swisher transitions to Vice President – Park Operations, Development & Industrial Engineering.

She has more than 23 years with the company, with experience across Parks, Worldwide Safety Services, Textile Services, and Industrial Engineering.

Note that this reads as a move, not a departure. Swisher stays with Walt Disney World in a resort-wide role covering operations, development, and industrial engineering — which is a broader remit than a single park.

“Development” in that title is worth flagging given how much construction is underway across the resort right now.

This Is a Broader Reshuffle

The changes extend beyond Hollywood Studios. Both Magic Kingdom and EPCOT have new General Managers of Park Operations as part of this round of moves.

That’s four leadership changes across three parks announced together, which is a coordinated reorganisation rather than a single appointment.

Reading the Timing

This lands five days after D23, and the context is hard to ignore.

Disney just announced the largest expansion slate in Walt Disney World history — Piston Peak and Villains Land at Magic Kingdom, Spaceship Earth and the Imagination pavilion at EPCOT, Monstropolis at Hollywood Studios, Tropical Americas at Animal Kingdom.

Every park receiving a leadership change is a park about to absorb years of major construction.

A reshuffle that puts operations and industrial engineering specialists into these roles, at this moment, is consistent with a company preparing for sustained disruption. Running a park through construction is fundamentally a capacity and logistics problem — reduced walkways, closed attractions, displaced guest flow, and crowds that don’t shrink to match.

This is inference from timing rather than something Disney has stated. But the pattern is legible.

What Dubiel Inherits

Hollywood Studios is in an unusual position, and the incoming VP faces a specific set of problems.

Monstropolis is under construction and targeting a 2027 opening for its first experiences — the Glob Theater, Harryhausen’s, Archie’s Scare Pig Pizza, and the Scareporium — with the flying door coaster arriving later. WDI’s construction footage from D23 showed facades going up and the Harryhausen’s sushi chef animatronic already in final programming.

Echo Lake has just been drained, with scaffolding covering the S.S. Down the Hatch and no completion date announced.

The park still has the resort’s tightest capacity constraints, and adding a new land while running two simultaneous construction projects makes that harder before it gets easier.

The upside is substantial. Monstropolis is the first genuinely new land at Hollywood Studios since Galaxy’s Edge in 2019, and it addresses the park’s central weakness — not enough to do.

Why Park VP Matters

For anyone unfamiliar with the structure: a park Vice President is the senior executive responsible for a single theme park — operations, guest experience, Cast Members, and day-to-day decision-making.

They don’t design attractions — that’s Imagineering — but they run everything about how the park works once it’s built.

Park hours, staffing, crowd management, entertainment scheduling, and how construction impact is handled all sit under this role.

It’s the job that determines whether a day at the park feels well-run, which is why the appointment matters more than an org chart change usually would.

The Bottom Line

Susan Dubiel is the new Vice President of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, arriving from General Manager of Park Operations at Magic Kingdom with 21-plus years across transportation, labor planning, and industrial engineering.

Jackie Swisher moves to Vice President – Park Operations, Development & Industrial Engineering, and both Magic Kingdom and EPCOT have new Park Operations General Managers.

The reshuffle lands days after Disney announced years of construction across every Walt Disney World park.

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Meet the Author: Nate Bishop

I’m a die-hard Disney fan with 38 years of visits under my belt, having stepped into Disney World 120+ times. Proud to be a Disney Annual Passholder, a Vacation Club member since ’92, a Castaway Club Member, and a runDisney enthusiast. Oh, and I’ve graduated from the Disney College of Knowledge. Need Disney insights or planning tips? I’m your guy!