Christine McCarthy Exits As Walt Disney Company CFO
The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger has announced that the company’s senior executive VP and chief financial officer Christine McCarthy is stepping down from her role.
McCarthy is set to take a family medical leave but will continue to serve as a strategic advisor at the company to help with the transition period following her departure. Her exit comes during a tumultuous time at Disney, which is laying off 7,000 employees as part of its $5.5 billion cost savings measures.
A key figure at the top of The Walt Disney Company for years, she was an outspoken critic of former CEO Bob Chapek’s aggressive streaming subscriber targets and reportedly played a key role in his removal as CEO and the subsequent return of Iger.
Since Chapek got the boot, there have been wildly disparate rumors about McCarthy’s future at the organization. In December, many insiders were tagging her as a possible Iger replacement when his contract expires in 2024, while others were citing internal sources that predicted she would leave the company sometime this year.
McCarthy joined Disney in 2000 as treasurer and became CFO in 2015. Before joining Disney, she was the executive VP and CFO of Imperial Bancorp. She currently serves on the board of directors of The Procter & Gamble Company and FM Global and is a trustee of the Carnegie Institution for Science.
In a release, Iger said of his long-time colleague:
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, and she and I have discussed her desire to ensure an orderly and successful CFO succession in advance of the company’s transition to its next chief executive officer.
McCarthy said:
I am immensely grateful for the opportunity Bob provided me to serve as CFO of this iconic company and am proud of the work my talented team has done to position Disney to capitalize on the business possibilities that lie ahead. Although I am leaving the CFO role, I look forward to helping with the transition and will always be rooting for the success of my extended Disney family, who have shown time and again that determination, teamwork, and the pursuit of excellence are an unstoppable combination.
As Disney searches for a permanent replacement, executive VP and Disney Parks, Experiences and Products CFO Kevin Lansberry will take over for McCarthy on an interim basis.
In the role, Lansberry will assume oversight of the company’s worldwide finance organization, which includes corporate alliances and partnerships, corporate real estate, corporate strategy and business development, enterprise controllership, enterprise technology, financial planning and analysis, global product and labor standards, global security, investor relations, risk management, tax and treasury.
