Yvett Merino

Biography:

American film producer Yvett Merino was a principal producer on Disney’s Encanto. Merino’s grandparents are Mexican, and she received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature as producer alongside Jared Bush, Byron Howard, and Clark Spencer. Her mother managed an office, and her father worked as a machinist. She attended the University of California Santa Barbara to study sociology after growing up in Norwalk, California. After a year of employment as a social worker, she started accepting temporary positions elsewhere, such as at Disney.

In the 1990s, Merino started working for Disney Animation with the intention of staying for five years. For Chicken Little (2005) and Meet the Robinsons (2007), Merino worked as a software developer and technology administration manager.

Roy Conli, the producer of Tangled (2010), invited her to oversee the editing department after she had advanced from the technology department to the position of administrative manager, making her a production manager.

She returned to school and earned an MBA. She worked as a production assistant on the 2012 film Wreck-It Ralph. For Big Hero 6 (2014), Zootopia (2016), Moana (2016), and Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), Merino served as production manager and departmental leader. Merino established Voces (Voices), an employee resource group at Disney. In addition, Encanto had a Familia Group that met for lunch once a month to talk about the idea of family.