David Stainton

David Stainton is an American film, television executive and as of 2013 the president of Universal Animation and Illumination. Prior to joining Universal, he was most noted for his tenure as president of Walt Disney Feature Animation from 2003 to 2006, a period during which the studio converted from a traditional animation studio to a computer animation production company. The films Chicken Little (2005) and Meet the Robinsons (2007) were produced during Stainton's tenure at the studio.

Career
Stainton was hired in 1989 by Walt Disney Pictures and Television as a manager of special projects. He transferred to Walt Disney Feature Animation in 1991 as vice president of creative affairs. He was promoted to senior vice president of creative affairs and was supervising Walt Disney Feature Animation France in January 1998. Returning to Burbank in January 2000, he was moved to Walt Disney Television Animation as executive vice president. In February 2002, Stainton was promoted to president.

In January 2003, he moved back to Walt Disney Feature Animation as president taking Disney MovieToons with him. Stainton ordered the closing of the Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida in January 2004.

In January 2006, he was replaced by Pixar co-founder Edwin Catmull, when Disney acquired Pixar. It also made Catmull and Pixar's chief creative officer, John Lasseter, heads of both studios.

After leaving Disney, he found Henry's World Media, a family entertainment production company in 2007. Stainton was hired by Paramount as president of Paramount Animation in October 2011 only to resign for personal reasons in February 2012. In September 2013, Stainton was later hired by Universal to be the president of its Universal Animation and Illumination divisions, where he oversaw every of Universal's animated features including Nepola's Odyssey II (2014), Paradoria (2015), Imagimals (2017), Lix (2017), Computeropolis: The Deep Web (2018), Paradoria 2 (2019), and Imagimals 2 (2020), as well as working with Illumination on their films including Minions (2015), The Secret Life of Pets (2016), Sing (2016), Despicable Me 3 (2017), The Grinch (2018), The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019), and Esqua‎‎ (2020).