Yalmaz Siddiqui
Yalmaz Siddiqui is Vice President of Environmental Sustainability at The Walt Disney Company. He leads global environmental sustainability across Disney’s multi-faceted businesses including Parks & Resorts, Movies, Television, Consumer Products, etc. One of his primary roles is to drive internal understanding of, and progress towards Disney’s ambitious 2030 environmental goals, including net zero greenhouse gases from direct operations and zero waste in parks and resorts. His team also works across the company to collect and aggregate environmental data for internal and external reporting. In addition he oversees Disney’s conservation and biodiversity work, as well as its employee commuting program.
Prior to Disney, Yalmaz was Vice President of Corporate Sustainability at MGM Resorts International from 2016 to 2022. He helped advance MGM’s approach to social and environmental sustainability including by leading goal setting processes and establishing infrastructure for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting. He also worked directly with business unit and functional leaders to implement multiple industry-leading initiatives including food donations, environmentally preferable purchasing, and sustainable events.
Yalmaz started his corporate environmental journey at Office Depot where he led global environmental strategy from 2006 to 2016. Over that decade he helped reduce the company’s carbon footprint by 40%, grow sales of environmentally preferable office products from $1.2 Billion to $3.2 Billion, and achieve recognition as America’s greenest large retailer by Newsweek Magazine for three consecutive years.
His career began at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and IBM Business Consulting where he was a Management Consulting focused on customer strategy and performance improvement.
Yalmaz is a global expert in sustainable purchasing and was the Founding Chair of the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council. He also serves on the Board of ReFED, America’s leading non-profit focused on driving system-wide change to reduce food loss and waste.
In 1992 Yalmaz received a Bachelor of Commerce with concentrations in Marketing and International Business from McGill University in Canada, and in 1994 earned a Masters of Philosophy in Environment & Development from the University of Cambridge in England.