Collins College of Hospitality Management
As Vice President of Disney’s California Adventure® Park and Guest Services, Mary Niven oversees daily operation of the park. She has lent her expertise to The Collins College as an active member of the Board of Advisors since 2002. Lisa McPheron, the college’s director of communications and external relations, gets the scoop from Niven about the park’s renovation, healthy eating and building a career with Disney.
California Adventure is in the process of a $1.1 billion makeover. How do you approach these renovations while the park is open daily?
First, we are committed to creating great guest experiences while we are going through all the construction; we want it to feel just as right. Second, we make sure that the operation requirements are embedded in the design and construction, so when we do bring these new products to life, they work the way we want them to work and create those special memories for the guests. The third piece is getting the cast ready for all the transformation in the park. We think, especially starting next spring with the opening of World of Color, a nighttime extravaganza, that that will be a transformative moment for how people think about this park and use this park. We are working with the leadership team to engage with the cast and get them ready for what their role will be and how they will need to think differently as we move through this transition.
What will World of Color be like?
You know how the Bellagio has the water show, and have you ever seen Fantasmic at Disneyland? Think of those two things but on a much grander scale. Bellagio has about 50 fountains; ours will have over 1,000 fountains. It will be a combination of water, lights, lasers, film; it is going to be pretty spectacular. It is the size of a football field filled with fountains and lights that is 400 feet long. The water is also choreographed, similar to how we choreographed our fireworks, which we believe differentiates us from other companies.
You have said that you and your employees need to be storytellers. What do you mean by that?
At Disney, we are about content and storytelling. When Walt Disney created the parks and resorts, he wanted to remove the family from the day-to-day and immerse them in rich stories that let the stress of the day go away. We accomplish that by having a great product. You must have great attractions and great entertainment that tell rich, Disney-branded stories. It’s important to us that every person who works for us loves the brand and loves the fact that we are about telling stories. They have a very important role in bringing the story to life. When we talk about where someone works, it’s not a workstation; they work “on stage.” We are putting on a show and everyone has an important role in making that show come to life every day.
Until your current position, you have been drawn to upper management positions in food and beverage operations. In addition to holding top F&B positions at Disneyland and UCLA, you were operations manager for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Athlete Food Service. How have those positions prepared you for what you do today?
My transition has been fantastic and a huge learning opportunity. Food and beverages is a complex business and so are operations. The great thing about the role is that every day is different. There are some days I am in the park primarily looking at the attractions and entertainment, food and beverage and retail and really assessing the business and the guest experience. And there are other days I am in meetings around strategy and the new expansion project.
I remember when cheeseburgers or a slice of pizza were the standard fare at Disneyland. However, that changed a few years back when Disney made a commitment to offer healthier meal options. Now you can buy fresh fruit as easy as buying a churro or ice cream. During this revamp you were vice president of Food and Beverage for Disneyland Resort. How did you implement these major changes?
I actually lead that initiative for Disney parks globally. The first challenge was when they said, “We need you to serve healthier food.” We all sort of gasped. “Are you kidding me? This is a theme park!” But once we got past that, we began to find creative solutions. We leveraged our culinary expertise to work on it from a creative standpoint as opposed to just making a statement that we are going to change these specifications. We challenged them to think about, “So how could you think differently about what you are creating for our menus so it meets these criteria but still meets its element of fun, it is still a Disney signature item, and we could sustain the pricing that we had in place?”
We also hired a dietitian, who previously worked for Disney, as opposed to a dietitian who worked in hospitals, schools or colleges. It helped working with someone who understood our business and how to find a balance here. Once we decided what we wanted to do, we gave it to our sourcing partners, and they sourced the product. It is hard for them to go out and source product until you tell them “this is exactly what I want.” It really helped using the creative side first.
How would you describe your management style?
For me it’s about surrounding myself with great people. We are very much about service leadership, which means the leader is more interested in the team than with themselves. When there is success, the team is accountable, but when it goes wrong, it is the leader that is accountable.
I am very fortunate that the executives who work for me from all the different functional areas have great technical expertise and they are solid leaders. Much of guest experience depends on effective frontline leadership. I meet with all of the leaders in the park once a month, and that is really good for me to be able to share the vision and how I want us to think about our business. And then it’s really about making sure they have the right tools so that they can on a day-to-day basis be able to have the right resources to support the cast.
As a member of The Collins College Board of Advisors you have opportunities to interact with our students. What advice do you give them if they are interested in pursuing a management career with Disney? Before you start a career, find something that you love. I recommend finding something you have great passion about, get technically really good at it and then be willing to take risks. University students often say they want to get their degree and immediately become a vice president. I totally understand that because I felt the same way when I was their age. But you know, especially in a company like Disney where understanding from the ground up is so important, taking an hourly job may feel like it’s beneath you, but you can hone the technical skills, demonstrate you have the core love of the brand and develop leadership capacities.
Most people will say “I’ve worked for Disney for 25 years and I’ve had 9 careers.” Disney really is about looking at people and finding their right talent and then leveraging that talent into a lot of different opportunities. It’s great, it’s like working for several companies, but you stayed with the same firm the whole time. We have cast members, especially here at Disneyland who have been here for more than 50 years. So they started as an hourly cast member just after the park opened and have been here their entire career.
Mary Niven
Vice President of Disney’s California Adventure® Park and Guest Services
