Omar K. Mills

Product leader and creative technologist

I build products and the people who build them. Twenty years leading digital products and teams; today, AI tools I direct by voice.

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20+ yrsleading digital product teams~30 → 6+hired; six now lead teamsPremierAchievement Award, Freddie Mac

I was born in Washington, D.C., to two radio personalities. My mother was a DJ at OK100 and worked in D.C. government on the mayor's staff. My father called sports on WYCB and was a historian at heart, with a sharp mind and a love for a good argument. Because of what they did, I grew up meeting Sugar Ray Leonard, Muhammad Ali, Vanessa Williams and Jim Brown. My creativity and my personality come from them.

My stepfather was a Marine and a police officer. My discipline comes from him, along with a line I still hear before every hard thing: "You've fought heavyweights before." When I once asked him who I could learn about money from, he said, "I'm already looking at him."

My mother was a single mom for a long time, and she raised me on faith and a few sayings I still live by. "Never waste a good storm." Faith runs through my whole family. I was drawn to the Lord at eight, gave Him my life a few years later, and was baptized at twelve. At fourteen I tried to win a debate with my dad about the gospel. Years later he gave his life to Christ, and not because I won.

We didn't have much. That left me with a chip on my shoulder and, eventually, something better: a need to make sure the people I lead feel wanted, valued and like they matter. I learned what rejection felt like at four years old, on a preschool playground, when I ran out of gum.

Radio was in the house, so a voice career found me later. And at twelve, hooked on Thor, Conan and He-Man, I drew a hero I called "Thamro the Almighty." He grew into a 48-episode audio drama and the Legends of Welkin novels.

Hear the voice work →See the books →
"Never waste a good storm."My mother
"You've fought heavyweights before."My stepfather

My first real job, at 22, was running legal documents around D.C. for a law firm. Then came an internship in the computer office of the U.S. Trade Representative during the Clinton years, where I met a network administrator named Ivan Hardaway. When Ivan moved to Price Waterhouse, he brought me with him as his assistant. He told me later it was because I wore a tie to that internship every single day.

Ivan taught me to run a network. When he left, I became the network administrator. I wanted to be a staff consultant, but that took a degree. So I took an outside offer, and in my last two weeks, the managing partner, Tom Beyer, called me into his office. I thought he was taking me to a farewell dinner. Instead he matched the offer and made me a staff consultant without the degree. A merger phased him out before the rest of the plan happened, but I never forgot that someone saw more in me than my paperwork did.

From there I followed Ivan to Ernst & Young Technologies, then taught myself enough HTML to become a web developer at Acterna. In 2002, Acterna laid me off.

Along the way, in 2000, I wrote and released a gospel album, Elyon, and heard it on the radio up and down the East Coast. I just knew I was going to be the next Fred Hammond. I was not. Eight years later a song of mine, "Consistently," went viral on YouTube. I can't read music, so the big gigs weren't mine, but I kept playing, and now I'm finishing the songs I never finished as Bearded Honey.

Hear the music →
  • ~1994Law firm, D.C. Office assistant, light paralegal work
  • ~1995USTR Intern, computer office
  • 1995–98Price Waterhouse Network admin, then staff consultant; projects in Dallas
  • 1998–2000Ernst & Young Technologies Network team
  • 2000–02Acterna Web developer, self-taught

After the layoff I landed a six-month contract at Fannie Mae and interviewed for a full-time role I was sure was mine. It went to someone with more time in the seat. For years I told myself I'd been used to pad the process. Looking back, I don't know that's true. That version just served my pain best.

I worked the CD section at a Barnes & Noble in Bowie, Maryland, for minimum wage, and discovered Beck's Sea Change at the listening station. My car was repossessed from an impound lot. Then I became a TSA security screener at Dulles Airport, on the East checkpoint, for about $25,000 a year. I worked 30 straight days before they let me sit for the x-ray explosives exam: three hours of training and three chances to pass, or you were done. I screened Bono, Magic Johnson, Joe Theismann and the entire LA Sparks team.

On the long commute from Maryland I listened to the Bible on CD. My seminary training started on the way to a job I didn't want.

I passed the exams to become a Prince George's County police officer and was waiting on the academy when Freddie Mac called. In between, Electronics Boutique hired me as an assistant manager and promoted me to general manager of its new store in Largo. Those jobs taught me more about business and leadership than almost anything since. At the TSA I worked beside veterans, former cops and dropouts like me, and I learned that skill comes from the work, not the paper.

It was a dark season. It's also why I'm hard to move now.

"You can beat me for 15 rounds, but I'm still coming."My superpower: I never stay down

Jobs in this chapter

  • Fannie Mae, web developer (contract)
  • Barnes & Noble, CD section
  • TSA, security screener, Dulles
  • Electronics Boutique (now GameStop), general manager

A few months after I arrived as a contractor, my boss left and my peer was let go. I expected them to cut all of us. They kept me. I worked from seven until close, training one new hire in the morning and another in the evening. Those two, Glenn Mullins and Ijoma Afulezi, worked with me for more than a decade and became the pillars of everything I built there. I went full time, became a manager, then a director.

The Eloqua story

My director made me own our email newsletter tool, which I didn't want. I replaced it with a better one and ran the rollout company-wide, but our contacts lived in Oracle, so every send still ran through me. Laziness is the mother of invention. I called Oracle to ask how to connect the two and got transferred to a vice president of sales, who asked me what I had in my hand. He offered to buy out our contract if I'd let them pitch.

I talked the executive assistants into booking the Fishbowl, the glass conference room on the badge-only legal floor. I ordered pizza and filled it with executives. Years earlier, a senior director named Lorig had taught me to write a business case, and I'd walked out of her office angry. Now I used it to get her approval for about $500,000. I resigned for Disney soon after. My successor told me the program grew into a team of about twelve. An idea to get myself out of a process created work for a dozen people.

All of this happened during the mortgage crisis, when our newsletters were nearly the only way the company could speak publicly.

Recognition

Premier Achievement Award

Freddie Mac's top employee honor, for crisis-era communications leadership.

Finishing the degree · 2006–2009

At lunch, my boss asked when I was going back to school. Before I could give my usual answer, the man who'd placed me at Freddie said, "He isn't doing anything." He was right. I cried, I prayed, and I enrolled at Strayer. My old credits had expired, so it was three and a half years from scratch while working full time. The last class was statistics. At graduation, my mother made me walk: "This isn't about you. It's about them." My young cousins were in the audience. All of them have degrees now.

Scope

  • Director of Web Production
  • 15-person team, 128 web properties, ~$2.4M budget
  • "One-Click Approval" cut content turnaround 70%

My first Disney leader, Kelly Cheng, took a gamble on me (and made me dress as Cruella). I arrived as an outsider manager, and the early years were hard. "Disney is one of those wonderful places that breaks you to build you." When I moved into product, I gave up my title again. I missed it. Then I learned that without a title you have to lead through influence and connection. Your title is no longer your power. You are.

I've run production teams across five locations, guided the apps' digital response through the park closures, worked on the Galactic Starcruiser datapad and Genie+ Audio Tales, and pitched and led Spanish for the Walt Disney World and Disneyland apps. On launch day I wrote, "There is nothing in the world quite like launch day."

That launch also exposed my gaps. I fell hard on my face, and I wouldn't change a thing. It taught me to trust God more than myself, to see feedback as growth, and it sent me back to my roots: finding a better way to work. That road led straight to AI.

I can't write Python. I know a guy. When language QA left hundreds of defects that each needed a ticket and a screenshot, I directed Claude to write a script that filed every one. Four days of work took about an hour. I teach this in a talk called What's In Your Hand?, a phrase I first heard from that Oracle vice president in 2013.

See what I've built with AI →

Early in my product years, a colleague whose only peace as a child was an hour of Disney cartoons a day told me, "Fix the little things. You have a chance to be a superhero." Suddenly my job was more than a job.

  • 2014–19Manager, Production A global team across five locations
  • 2019–20Manager, Digital Product Operations The park closures and reopening
  • 2020–22Lead Product Manager Genie+ Audio Tales, Play app, Starcruiser datapad
  • 2022–nowManager, Product Management Spanish for both resort apps; AI in daily product work
"You don't become a leader until you make a leader."Borrowed from my predecessor
"AI should increase your authorship rather than replace it."My creative rule
Omar pointing at his name on the new-hire welcome board, Manager, Production
Day one, 2014
Omar shaking hands with Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro
With Josh D'Amaro, CEO of The Walt Disney Company
Omar and his team in Mickey ears at the officeOmar with Mickey Mouse in front of a castle backdropOmar, arms wide, in front of a Darth Vader muralOmar with the umbrella lamppost on a studio backlot streetOmar, arms wide, in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle at DisneylandOmar sharing a moment with Minnie Mouse
Omar holding his 10 Years badge on Main Street at night, castle lit in blue
Ten years at Disney
Omar with teammates at a ballgame
Omar with Stacey Stafford, holding his 10-year service award plaque
10-year service award, with Stacey Stafford
Omar and a teammate in Mickey ears in front of a Fantasia mural
Omar and a colleague holding their 10-year plaques at sunset above Magic Kingdom
Ten years, plaques in hand
Omar with colleagues on Main Street at the 10-year celebrationOmar next to a giant Mickey ice cream barOmar with his team at EPCOTOmar and a colleague at a Disney eventOmar and a friend in front of an AT-AT at Hollywood StudiosOmar smiling in front of Cinderella CastleOmar at the Japan pavilion torii gate at EPCOT

My first week at Moody Theological Seminary humbled me fast. I had walked in thinking I couldn't miss. I called my mom, and she said, "God didn't send you there to fail." I prayed, "If I have to fail for You to get glory, then get glory." I got my first A the next day. In 2026 I finished a graduate certificate in Biblical Studies at Moody.

Seminary also brought me back to church. Church hurt, much of it from playing in church bands as a musician who can't read music, had pushed me out of several churches. A professor asked me where I was in church. God's word for me for 2025 was obedience: be where I tell you to be. I went back, joined the prayer team, and now I have friends who text me when I'm not there.

I write devotionals, I host Wait, That's in the Bible?, and people know that if they need prayer, they can call me. "But don't take my word for it, read it for yourself."

Listen to Wait, That's in the Bible? →Read my seminary papers →
"Do you love Me more than you hate the pain?"A question I heard while shaving. It became a paper and a podcast episode.
"You know you're ready when you want more FOR your people than you want FROM them."On readiness for management
"Promotion is never FOR you. It's always THROUGH you."On ambition
"I don't panic, I plan."On pressure
"How much they love you has no bearing on how well you must lead them."On loneliness at the top
"You always need someone in your creative circle who can tell you no."On writing with a partner
"Learning must become greater to you than winning."From my Chessable course

The people who built me

FamilyMy mother, my father, my stepfather

Early careerIvan Hardaway, Tom Beyer, Rick Vessels, Charles Rutstein

Freddie MacTodd Florence, Jason Grim, Tim McCarthy, Lorig Armenian, Sharon McHale, David Palombi, Sarah Leonard, Amanda Meehan, Jeff Markowitz, Sherry Carrero

DisneyKelly Cheng, Nathan Leader, Gary Daniels, Nicole Bond, Colleen Aravena, Kelly White, Tony Lloyd, Stacey Stafford, Adam Grandy, Jarett Smith, Elle Kincaid, Ryan Ruth, Michael Trum

FaithBishop Keith W. Reed Sr., Pastor Victor O. Kirk, Randy Alcorn, John "Turk" Edwards, Pastor Justin Miller, Pastor Dustin Todd, Pastor Tecia Pelling, Cyndi Staudt, Jon Waller, Tracey Tiernan

SeminaryDr. David Woodall, Dr. Michael Jones

WritingSki-ter Jones

On my nightstand

Joe Abercrombie, all of it: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, Last Argument of Kings, Best Served Cold, The Heroes, Red Country, A Little Hatred, The Trouble with Peace, The Wisdom of Crowds · Frank Peretti, This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness · F. Parker Hudson, All on the Edge · James Clear, Atomic Habits · Randy Alcorn, Lord Foulgrin's Letters · Robert Cormier, The Chocolate War · L. David Marquet, Turn the Ship Around (reading now)

"But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy."ACTS 20:24 · MY LIFE VERSE

I want people to say Omar was the kind of person that if they needed to get a prayer through, they could call him. That he was creative. He wrote books. He played chess. He liked superheroes and comic books. But he loved Jesus more than all of it.

He wasn't perfect and made a lot of mistakes. But he loved the Lord, and he wasn't afraid to say His name in any room he walked into.

Omar in a gray suit, smiling, hands clasped, on a charcoal backdrop

Contact

Let's talk

The fastest way to reach me is email.

omarkmills@gmail.com

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