This year has seen some major changes for movie studios. Most notably, Warner Bros. and their big merger with Discovery has caused major overhauls in content and unstable company morale with their artists. Recently, some big alterations also went down at the House of the Mouse as former CEO Bob Iger seemingly showed up like the returned heroes at the end of Avengers: Endgame to take over for Bob Chapek, who had been a controversial choice as his successor.
Deadline reports that Disney has a new frontrunner for CEO once Iger puts the company back on track and steps down once again. That new prospect is Disney CFO, Christine McCarthy. An insider with the studio has commented, “Christine has always been a force to be reckoned with, but you have to put her on a list of top five possibilities after the last few weeks.” What they’re referring to is the fact that McCarthy led the board into reconsidering Chapek’s position with Disney. As she once oversaw operations under Iger’s regime, McCarthy had made sure to make the leadership transition smooth and successful as Chapek took over. When he underperformed, she led a coup of sorts to get Iger to return.
Now that Iger’s back in the big chair, it is obvious it will be temporary once operations get back on track. McCarthy seems like the obvious choice to succeed in his position, which would make her historically the first female CEO in the famous Magic Kingdom’s 100-year existence. A long-time Wall Street analyst speaks in further support of McCarthy’s initiative in leadership, “In the 35 years I’ve been doing this, I never saw a CFO go around a CEO.” Another analyst adds, “She really shined when the pandemic hit. She did exactly what the CFO should do. She lined up enough cash for one to two years of no revenue. She put together a huge bundle of cash at reasonable rates very quickly to protect the company.”