Dan Cockerell

Dan Cockerell's Biography

Dan Cockerell is the former Vice-President of the Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World, Florida.

Dan is an international speaker, inspiring storyteller, industry expert, virtual COO, and coach who draws on his 26-year career with the Walt Disney World Company to provide customized, authentic presentations and programming focusing on leadership and management practices.

Dan Cockerell attended Boston University, graduating in 1991, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science.  An avid rugby player, he was selected for the 1990 and 1991 USA Collegiate All-American Rugby team, and was Captain for the 1991 team. Upon graduation from Boston University in 1991, Dan moved to Florida and worked as a parking attendant at Disney’s Epcot Center.

Subsequently, he joined the Disneyland Paris Management Trainee Program. He was transferred to France to join the opening team of Disneyland Paris three months prior to the grand opening. While in France, he held various management positions in Park Operations. He and his wife Valerie, who was also with Disneyland Paris, were married in France and spent five years there before moving back to Orlando in 1997.  Since that time they have raised three children – Jullian, Margot and Tristan.

Dan has held various executive operations roles at the Walt Disney World Resort, both in the theme parks and resort hotels, and retired as the Vice President of the Magic Kingdom where he led 12,000 cast members and entertained over 20 millions guests annually.

He earned his MBA in 2001 at the Crummer School of Business at Rollins College. In addition to his operational responsibilities, Dan was a keynote speaker for the world-renowned Disney Institute for 18 years.

He has addressed open-enrollment participants as well as attendees in customized programs including the USAA Bank, General Motors, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Army, the Southern Methodist University Business School, Porsche A.G., and United Airlines.

He also participated in the Sodexo Quality Life Worldwide Conference Panel, moderated by Arianna Huffington, in 2015. He served on the board of Junior Achievement of Central Florida from 2004-2018, and was Chairman in 2010.

After a fulfilling and exciting 26-year career with the Walt Disney Company, Dan and Valerie made the decision to set out on a new venture and start their own consulting and speaking business.

Dan learned that storytelling can be a powerful tool to convey a message in the most relatable way possible. In his various executive roles in the company, he used storytelling as a tool to lead and inspire his employees and share his vision for his organization. His experience in building and cultivating great culture combined with his storytelling ability provide entertaining and informative insights that are relevant to any organization regardless of size or industry.

Dan’s virtual keynotes are also highly insightful and informative and have received excellent feedback from those lucky enough to experience them.

Speaking Topics Include

How’s the Culture in Your Kingdom?

Lessons from a Disney Leadership Journey

How's the Culture in Your Kingdom helps prepare leaders to lead their team by teaching them how to:

Surround themselves with the right people

Build trusting relationships

Set clear expectations

And provide regular feedback, positive and critical

Lessons in Customer Service

Dan shares the importance of leading a “customer centric” organization and continuously improve the experience based on clients’ expectations, needs, and feedback, the function of a common purpose, and how it focuses employees’ attention on the customer experience, above and beyond their specific role. Dan shares many more valuable insights based ion the Disney model of customer service.

Leading, Managing and Improving the Organisation – Safety and Wellness, the base of Maslow’s pyramid: If your employees are injured and unhealthy, all other goals get harder to reach. Creating a world-class safety culture requires not only expertise, planning, and prioritization, but most importantly requires visible leadership support, and an eye on leading indicators.

Leadership Workshop

Dan is a retired 26 year Disney veteran who started parking cars at Epcot and after 19 different roles, finished his career as Vice President, Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida leading 12,000 cast members at the largest theme park in the world.

Valerie started her career as a cultural representative at the French Pavilion at Epcot. She subsequently held various management roles in retail and assortment planning, at both Disneyland Paris, Walt Disney World and the Disney Cruise Line. She finished her Disney career as a facilitator for the world renowned Disney Institute.

Drawing upon their combined 41 years of Disney leadership experience, Dan and Valerie facilitate half day and full day workshops outlining their approach to building a culture of excellence that leads to world class leadership and customer service. During the session, Valerie shares her expertise on creating a framework that fosters empowerment and employee engagement. Dan continues the day in an interactive and conversational format sharing leadership insights and real life experiences from his various roles at Disney.

The “Method to the Magic Workshop”

Drawing upon their combined 41 years of Disney experience, Dan and Valerie facilitate the “Method to the Magic” workshop outlining their approach to building a great culture that stems from world class leadership and results in customer service excellence.

Valerie, former Disney Institute Facilitator, describes in detail how to build a framework that fosters empowerment and employee engagement. Dan continues the session in an interactive and conversational format, sharing leadership insights and tactics as well as real life stories from his various roles at Disney.

To create an inclusive learning environment, the workshop combines traditional teaching methods with insight-based learning, visual presentations, interactive tasks, and group work.

The key difference between their workshop and others is that they are not professional facilitators. They are business leaders who love to teach. They are willing to customize the session to fit your needs and are open to discussing their successes and failures as tools to better illustrate their points.

The “Method to the Magic” workshop

Duration: 6-8 hours

Number of participants: up to 50

Format: insight-based teaching, combined with activities and group conversations