Horacio Gutierrez

Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer The Walt Disney Company

Last Reviewed: October 3, 2026

Executive Summary

Horacio Gutierrez is Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer of The Walt Disney Company, responsible for its legal, regulatory, public policy and government affairs work worldwide and an adviser to senior management and the board. He joined Disney as general counsel in February 2022, added compliance in 2023, and took on global affairs in November 2025. Before Disney he was head of global affairs and chief legal officer at Spotify, and before that general counsel of Microsoft, where he spent 17 years, starting as a corporate attorney for Latin America in 1998. Trained as a lawyer in Venezuela before studying in the United States, he has led legal departments at three companies whose products cross borders by design.

Career Highlights

• Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer of Disney since November 2025; Disney general counsel since February 2022.
• Head of Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer of Spotify, 2019 to 2022.
• Corporate Vice President and General Counsel of Microsoft.
• Board member of the Motion Picture Association and of Kids in Need of Defense.

Professional Journey

Gutierrez earned a law degree and a postgraduate diploma in corporate and commercial law at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, a JD at the University of Miami School of Law, and an LLM at Harvard Law School, which he attended as a Fulbright scholar, according to his Disney biography.

He joined Microsoft in 1998 as corporate attorney for Latin America and spent 17 years in its legal department, as associate general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa from 2002, deputy general counsel for intellectual property and licensing from 2006 and for products and services from 2014, and finally corporate vice president and general counsel, overseeing Microsoft’s legal affairs worldwide.

In April 2016 he joined Spotify as general counsel and vice president of business and legal affairs, and from November 2019 to January 2022 was its head of global affairs and chief legal officer, leading teams covering legal, communications, government relations, licensing, content partnerships, public policy and trust and safety.

He became Disney’s senior executive vice president and general counsel on 1 February 2022, added chief compliance officer in March 2023, became chief legal and compliance officer in December 2023 and chief legal and global affairs officer on 4 November 2025, when Disney extended his agreement to 2028. Disney reports three segments, Entertainment, Sports and Experiences, and employed about 231,000 people at the end of fiscal 2025, according to its annual report. He sits on the boards of the Motion Picture Association and Kids in Need of Defense, is on the advisory board of the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession and is a member of the Legal Services Corporation’s Leaders Council.

Education

Harvard Law School

Master of Laws

University of Miami School of Law

Juris Doctor

Universidad Católica Andrés Bello

Bachelor of Laws