“What Would Walt do?” Reimagining your future can be a live or virtual experience!

Hospitality, Leisure, Malls, Stadiums, and even Restaurant operators today are wrestling with how their customer experience will be affected long term by the introduction of COVID and its litany of regulations. The “shared experience” of a concert, game, 4th of July fireworks show or even candlelight dinner is under attack. Eddie Sotto, an expert in guest experience, discusses how to think about your business in a way to apply the mandated solutions in a way that your customers will feel less impacted and enjoy the experience they were accustomed to. (He’s formed a think tank to solve it progresscity.com ) This experiential, customer centric process he learned at Disney can be applied to almost any topic. It works. Sotto has proved to be the leading “take away” speaker with many “Aha” moments. Watch his TEDX talk, “The how of wow” for a taste.

Topics range from innovation, customer experience, design thinking, architecture, and the “How of Wow!”

Eddie Sotto- Virtual Speaker, TV Interviews, Podcasts, or Voice Acting.

Check out these Voice Over Demos

Eddie also books speaking engagements availability permitting. He has been retained to give fast paced illustrated Keynotes to audiences in-person and virtually via webcast, from a select board of directors, to over 5000 over the years at conventions and for offsite retreats. Nokia, Procter and Gamble, Disneyland Paris, Westfield, WET design, Urban Land institute, IAAPA, Efteling, Applied Invention, PIXAR, Warner Bros, Disney Imagineering, Art Center College of Design, UCLA, Gensler, D23, as well as being a keynote speaker for TEDX. For more information. info@sottostudios.com

As Featured in Bestselling Books, Magazines and Television Series

Made the list in the definitive book "Who's really Who. The 1000 most creative people in America".
- TED Founder, Richard Saul Wurman

"Eddie's passion for new ideas and one-of-a-kind Adventures was a creative leader's dream."
- Imagineering President Marty Sklar, - "Dream it! Do it!".

"Wildly imaginative Imagineer."
- Disney CEO Michael Eisner - "Work in Progress"

Sotto's insights led to being "most quoted," with more than 400 separate entries in the encyclopedic Bible of the industry.  "Theme Parks and the Art of Themed Entertainment"

In addition to the above, Sotto has contributed to or is quoted in these popular books. “One Little Spark”, “Travels with Figment” -Marty Sklar, “The Disney Railroads”, “The Art of the Disney Poster,” “Designing Disney’s Theme Parks”, “Disneyland Paris, From Dream to Reality”, “Walt’s People 14”, “The Art of Disneyland”, ”Disney Imagineering”, “Knott’s Preserved”, and many more. His designs and experience have been featured in The New Yorker, Town and Country, Vogue, Architectural Digest, Elle Decor Italia, Los Angeles Magazine, The New York, London and LA Times, Esquire, Maxim, Details, Paris Match, Stern, Wired, and The Robb Report to name a few.

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Frequent “Guest Experience” expert on Cable and Network Television

Professional Background and Profile

 SVP Concept Design Walt Disney imagineering. In his 13 year career there, Sotto managed to creatively direct the execution a half billion dollars of projects along the way, including Main Street USA at Disneyland Paris, the early creative development of the Indiana Jones Adventure, and directed the design of Tokyo Disneyland that planned new lands and created attractions including the first ever trackless dark ride, the game changing "Pooh's Hunny Hunt.". As Senior VP of Concept Design, Eddie also has the distinction of running his own "think tank" within Disney called the Concept Development Studio. There they “pushed the envelope” by developing smart wireless toys, augmented reality coasters, online worlds, and resort concepts. Back in the 1990s! Other projects Eddie's studio created include the breakthrough “Mission:Space” Attraction for EPCOT Center, the “media as architecture” facade of ABC's Times Square Studios, and the award winning “Encounter” Restaurant at the Los Angeles International Airport.  Wikipedia portfolio here.

Download Eddie Sotto Resume PDF

It’s worth noting that after Sotto quit Imagineering in 2000, Disney continued to tap SottoStudios to develop projects in marketing, interactive technology, and resorts. We value our continuing business relationship with the Walt Disney Company.