Former Disney Exec Joins Leadership Team at Major Ski Resort Owner
Dan Cockerell, a former Disney executive, is joining the leadership team at Boyne Resorts, the mountain company known for owning and running ski areas like Big Sky in Montana, the Summit in Washington, and Brighton in Utah.
Cockerell spent nearly three decades with Disney. At Boyne, he'll serve as the president of operations, a newly created role, this August.
In it, according to the company, he'll "bolster operational leadership capabilities across the Boyne Resorts collection while preserving the resort autonomy and support local decision-making."
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Stephen Kircher, the president and CEO of Boyne, said in a release that adding a president of operations was the "right organizational move."
"The timing is right to bring on a leader of this depth in experience, who can serve as a stronger central partner to our senior team and strengthen succession planning and leadership development across the company," he continued.
Kircher added that Cockerell brings "the experience, the philosophy and the discipline" the role requires.
According to his LinkedIn page, Cockerell last worked for Disney as the vice president of the Magic Kingdom, a massively popular theme park in Florida populated with rides and characters from Disney movies.
While there, he led a team of 12,000 cast members and was responsible for daily operations. He also worked on annual financial planning and long-term master planning for Magic Kingdom. Most recently, Cockerell served as the CEO of Torrens University in Australia.
In the release, Cockerell said that Boyne has built "one of the most distinctive collections" of ski resorts and done so while remaining an independent, family-owned company.
"That is rare, and it is worth protecting. I have admired this company for a long time, and I'm honored to join Stephen and the team," he said.
It's not unheard of for people with resumes that don't only include skiing to join executive teams at mountain resort companies.
Last year, Vail Resorts hired Celeste Burgoyne, a former member of Lululemon's corporate leadership team, to be its executive vice president and chief revenue officer.
Similar to Cockerell, Todd Bennett spent decades at Disney before being appointed as the president and COO of Deer Valley, Utah, in 2022. Before his stint with Disney, though, he worked as an operations manager with Vail Resorts, per LinkedIn.
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This story was originally published May 15, 2026 at 10:58 AM.