On June 15, the entertainment industry and Disney fans around the country were shocked when it was announced that longtime Disney Chief Financial Officer, Christine McCarthy, would be stepping down from her role. Beginning July 1, Kevin Lansberry, the current Executive Vice President and CFO of Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products, will take on the CFO role. In Disney’s announcement, Disney said that McCarthy was stepping away due to family medical reasons. Should she return to Disney, it will be in the role of “Strategic Advisor.”
McCarthy has been with The Walt Disney Company for more than 20 years, and has always been a close ally of CEO Bob Iger. In fact, McCarthy was one of the catalysts in ousting now-fired CEO Bob Chapek and bringing Iger back. However, it appears that her relationship with Iger took a turn in her final year at Disney, and the two are at odds.
According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, McCarthy wasn’t pleased with the way Iger was structuring the company. Over the past several months, Disney has laid off thousands of people in an attempt to cut $5.5 billion from the budget. Iger has also consolidated the company into three main parts — theme parks and consumer products, ESPN, and then one unit for Disney Entertainment. Disney Entertainment includes movie and television operations, as well as streaming for both Disney+ and Hulu.
However, McCarthy thought that Iger should further consolidate Disney Entertainment in order to streamline it and save more money. That put her at odds with Iger and other executives. Per WSJ:
The abrupt exit of McCarthy caught some colleagues and associates by surprise. A person familiar with her situation said there have been no dramatic changes in her life recently that would require her to step back.
McCarthy has clashed with Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger and other top executives over strategy, including the amount of money Disney spends on content and a recent restructuring that she felt didn’t go far enough to streamline the company, a person familiar with the matter said.
McCarthy pushed for the Disney Entertainment unit to be further consolidated to improve profit margins and give Disney a leaner structure more akin to Netflix, putting her at odds with the unit’s leadership, the person familiar with the matter said.
McCarthy was unafraid to challenge her bosses if she felt a bad move was being made, people who know her said. A familiar figure to Wall Street, McCarthy delivered financial results for Disney to analysts for decades in a robotic voice that belied her sharp tongue, quick wit and strong opinions.
McCarthy’s exit also comes just weeks after she was named in a potential class-action lawsuit. Several Disney investors filed a lawsuit against Bob Chapek, Christine McCarthy, and Chapek’s right-hand man, Kareem Daniel. The investors claim that Chapek, McCarthy, and Daniel lied to investors and cooked the books to make it appear like Disney+ was more successful than it was. Investors claim that they were lied to about how many subscribers Disney+ had, how much it cost to operate the streaming platform, and the likelihood of profitability by 2024.
