Francesca Vergara
CIO
Disneyland Paris
Francesca Vergara Caffarelli is the Vice President of Technology & Digital for Disneyland Paris, the number one tourist destination in Europe, encompassing two parks and seven hotels, operated by 17,000 employees.
As VP in charge of Technology & Digital, Francesca leads the related strategy and roadmap for the Disneyland Paris site, both locally and within the global context of the Disney Parks experience and products segment.
Prior to this role, Francesca served in multiple digital and IT roles at both multinational and local companies, in the consumer goods, retail and utilities industries.
Learn more about the France CIO community here.
Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.
During the first 25 years of my career, I served in multiple local, regional and global IT roles at Procter & Gamble and later Coty – the last years serving as CIO for multiple global business units. During this period, I was located in Italy, Costa Rica and Switzerland.
Willing to explore the different challenges of smaller local realities, I relocated in 2017 to Italy, taking over the CI&DO role at Italgas (utilities) first and Esselunga (grocery retail) later, leading their digital transformation agendas and roadmaps.
2023 is the year when I relocated to Paris to join Disneyland Paris, a very diverse and articulated local entity of an equally diverse and articulated multinational company – sort of a cross-path of the two former phases of my career.
What is one of your guiding leadership principles?
Embracing diversity of all sorts is a major booster for organisations’ and teams’ productivity.
With disruption being a key theme of the past few years, where do you see your role as a CIO going in the next 1-2 years?
Disneyland Paris is going through a major transformation and development phase, after many years of continuity.
As the destination enriches its offering, my role as CIO is increasingly focused on enabling a higher quality and innovative guest experience, while helping our internal operations to become more efficient and effective.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in the role as a CIO?
You will find many opportunities to tackle key challenges and will likely be pulled for help from all sides. It will be critical from the beginning to establish yourself at the leadership table and secure the alignment of IT and business priorities.
Tell us 3 fun facts about yourself.
I love the unexplored tracks – even in my everyday life. I never visit the same place twice, never go to the same restaurant, start every morning with a different breakfast, and change a part of my commute every day. Think about how tiring it is to live with me!
Ah yes… I also never answer the same question more than once – so it’s one fun fact only ;)
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