Ferren led the Disney Imagineering R&D group as Senior Vice President, then Executive Vice President, before eventually becoming President of R&D and Creative Technology for Disney, and head of technology for the company for 10 years. According to his former boss, CEO Michael Eisner, Ferren's mission was "to dream about the future and show us new and innovative ways to tell stories". Starting in 1993, he was the first corporate executive to receive the now-common job title of "Creative Technology", indicating responsibility for both creative and technical domains. When Eisner interviewed him on his new talk show, "Conversations with Michale Eisner", he said that he loved that Bran "pushed me against the wall, and pushed management" in the areas of creativity and technology. The idea to create the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, and its name (derived from Ferren's title at Disney), originated from discussions with US Army leadership (four-star general Paul J. Kern) on how to gain access to Hollywood entertainment industry expertise in high-technology areas such as computer-based Modeling & Simulation, and Virtual Reality.