As upfront week winds down, Adweek is sitting down for postmortems with all of the presenting advert gross sales chiefs, together with NBCUniversal’s Mark Marshall, Fox’s Marianne Gambelli and TelevisaUnivision’s Donna Speciale. Now, it’s time for Rita Ferro, Disney’s president of promoting gross sales and partnerships.

Disney introduced a number of huge names to its Tuesday upfront occasion on the North Javits Middle, together with Kim Kardashian, Kevin Feige and Angel Reese. However like with a lot of the occasions all through the week, the continuing Writers Guild of America strike sophisticated issues, leaving many entertainers, together with the corporate’s annual upfront roaster, Jimmy Kimmel, out of the presentation.

Regardless of any added difficulties, Ferro had nothing however compliments in regards to the firm’s new venue, confirming to Adweek that Disney would maintain its upfront presentation on the North Javits Middle for 2 extra years, and that subsequent yr’s presentation is already locked in for Could 14, 2024.

Ferro chatted with Adweek in regards to the significance of bringing in huge stars regardless of the strike, difficult entrepreneurs round DEI and what it’s like closing issues out with out Kimmel.

This interview has been edited for size and readability.

Adweek: You made it by means of upfront week. Trying again on the occasion, what are you proudest of?
Ferro: I feel the occasion turned out as nice as I envisioned it to prove. The venue was improbable. It actually suited us by way of what we hope to do, which is present the depth and breadth of Disney by way of the way it involves life on that stage. We had a unprecedented lineup of expertise and athletes and content material on the stage throughout all of our platforms, which actually conveyed the present should go on once you’re Disney. And so no matter no matter challenges and dynamics we’ve to take care of, we all the time need to guarantee that we’re delivering what folks anticipate, and I really feel like most, if not all of our shoppers who had been there, gave us that suggestions. They felt it was one of many strongest occasions this week that was very clear on its messaging, very clear on the worth proposition being anchored in the most effective of sports activities and streaming and stay leisure, ensuring that shoppers understood that interoperability was on the core of how we take into consideration doing enterprise collectively in order that they’ll plan, purchase and measure throughout our portfolio.