The Walt Disney Company was already in the market for a new Chief Executive Officer. Bob Iger returned at the end of the last year with the understanding he would only hold the job for two years, but now the C-Suite is getting another major shakeup as the woman largely credited as the architect of Iger’s return, Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy, is taking a medical leave of absence that will see her out as CFO. But the current CEO is singing her praises.
Christine McCarthy has been with the Walt Disney Company since 2000 and has been the company’s CFO since 2015. Late yesterday the Walt Disney Company made the surprising announcement that McCarthy would be stepping down as CFO effective July 1. In a statement CEO Bob Iger praised McCarthy for her service to Disney during one of the more transformative periods in Disney’s 100-year history. Iger said…
Christine McCarthy is one of the most admired financial executives in America, and her impact on The Walt Disney Company during 23 years of dedicated service cannot be overstated. Christine has served as a key strategic anchor during a period of great transformation.
It’s unclear what the specific reason for McCarthy’s medical leave is, though she has dealt with cancer previously in her life. Even if McCarthy finds herself able to return to work, she will not be returning to the CFO role. She will remain a strategic advisor to CEO Iger through the end of June 2024, at which point her employment with Disney will officially end.
Kevin Lansberry, the current CFO of the Parks, Experiences, and Products division, will be stepping into the role as Interim CFO while the search for a permanent replacement is conducted. While one assumes Lansberry will be a strong candidate for the job, and may very well end up getting it; it’s perhaps telling that he’s not simply being promoted into the role.
This puts Disney as a company in a very unusual position as it has both an interim CFO and essentially an interim CEO. Bob Iger returned to Disney last year after the Board of Directors ousted Bob Chapek following poor financial performance at the company. Fans largely celebrated Chapek leaving Disney, but it was made clear Iger was only coming back through 2024, and part of his mandate in coming back was to spearhead the search for a long-term replacement.
Christine McCarthy was reportedly the person who first contacted Bob Iger to see if a return to Disney was possible, and her name had even been floated as a possible future CEO, though that seemed unlikely considering her age. Still, there was no expectation of her leaving Disney in the short term, so her exit is a shock. Disney’s stock price has been in decline today, almost certainly based on this news.
With Disney on the hunt for both a CFO and a CEO, what's clear is that there will be new people running two of the most important positions within Disney within the next couple of years. Things are changing at the Mouse House.
