Andrew Sugerman, ’97, has built his career on captivating audiences. The former Disney executive and co-founder of production studio Invisible Narratives has excelled at enthralling audiences while working in publishing, digital learning, and entertainment. But there was one particular moment in his career when he found himself spellbound.
In 2012, when he was an executive vice president at Disney, Sugerman was responsible for leading the iconic entertainment brand’s $3 billion portfolio of print and digital publishing properties. At the time, Disney had one very notable newcomer that came from a galaxy far, far away.
“When we acquired Star Wars and Lucasfilm, I went up to the Presidio in San Francisco and I had the chance to really dig into the Expanded Universe and archives of the Star Wars universe,” Sugerman recalled. “It was surreal to ‘own’ stories that in many ways shaped my childhood.”
He took advantage of the opportunity to have three New York Times bestselling authors write their own interpretations of George Lucas’s iconic first Star Wars trilogy—A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. The three books launched prior to the 2015 release of The Force Awakens, the first Star Wars film to be released under Disney.
He
had first arrived at Disney in 2007 to lead Shanghai-based Disney
English, an innovative children’s education startup. He oversaw
everything from language-learning content and curriculum to real estate
and technology—and ultimately scaled the new project to 1,500 employees
serving 40,000 school children across China.
His credits his Booth education with helping him guide such
large-scale endeavors, relying on boundless creativity while remaining
grounded in smart business strategy guided by data. His coursework in
finance, statistics, strategy, and marketing taught him how to think
several moves ahead, he said.