Trouble On the Disney Board of Directors?
This is an interesting development. Safra Catz has resigned from the Disney Board of Directors. She’s been there for only six years and that’s nowhere near mandatory retirement for a board member.
I suppose I should post Disney’s boilerplate statement:
“Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement, “Throughout her tenure on Disney’s board of directors, Safra has provided invaluable insight that has helped shape the company’s long-term strategic planning amid a rapidly changing technological landscape that affects our businesses. Her contributions have been tremendous, and on behalf of the Walt Disney Company, I want to personally thank Safra for her years of service.”
This is what you’d normally expect to see for an executive who’s been fired. Catz has fulfilled the function of token opposition to Bob Iger. Kind of like the Mitt Romney of the Disney BOD, she would occasionally make remarks that indicated she was giving Bob slightly less than 100% of her support but at the end of the day, she always backed his play.
I suppose there is the matter of conflicting interests, she’s the CEO of Oracle which means that Oracle now has a stake in Paramount. However, there is quite a bit of legal daylight between Oracle and David Ellison. Theoretically, it’s a conflict, but Bob Iger had a bigger one when he was on the Apple BOD and helped them put together Apple TV+. I suspect at the time, Bob was convinced that Apple TV+ was going to be rolled into Disney+ when he finally talked Tim Cook into buying out Disney, but that didn’t happen.
Sometimes it’s more instructive to see who’s coming in rather than who is leaving but in this case, it’s no one. Safra Catz’s board seat is being taken out of the room. The Disney BOD is going from twelve down to eleven seats.
That leaves a few possibilities. While Disney’s BOD likes to present a united front in public, unanimously renewing Bob Chapek’s contract early and then unanimously shitcanning him a few months later, there may have been some dissension on the all-important question of Iger’s successor. As pointed out earlier, the head of Disney Parks is out of the running due to performance. The head of ESPN was never in the running which means the only other chairman whose division is performing is Dana Walden. While Hulu is doing just great, far closer to Bob’s heart is the fact that ABC has been the number-one network since she took over.
The smoke signals strongly indicate that Walden is Iger’s heir of choice However, Iger tried to make Tom Staggs his successor in 2015 and the board didn’t approve him. Even token opposition may no longer be acceptable if he’s running into opposition to Walden (and Glob knows there needs to be opposition, she’s the biggest reason Kathleen Kennedy still has a job. She’ll be genuinely worse than Bob Iger). When you have a twelve-seat BOD you need to talk seven people into thinking your way. A CEO is always going to have at least four yes men on the board, but finding three more yes votes can get very difficult. However, if it is eleven then you only have to have six, meaning you only have to get two more in your corner. The math is very simple but the politics are incredibly complicated.
My guess is that Iger is having trouble getting his pick for CEO through the board. Forcing a vulnerable recalcitrant off due to conflicting interests was a way to move things forward. This is just a guess but it fits the facts.
