Earlier this month, Christine McCarthy announced she would be stepping down from her role as CFO of the Walt Disney Company — after two decades in the seat — to take a “family medical leave of absence,” the company announced.

However, there may be more to McCarthy’s leaving than meets the eye, especially when it comes to the CFO-CEO dynamic within the company and the recent headwinds they have faced, according to Greg Selker, managing director at executive search firm Stanton Chase. 

Although McCarthy’s ailing husband has been at a healthcare facility since the start of 2023, her departure took fellow executives by surprise as they categorized it as “abrupt,” The Wall Street Journal reported. 

“The political intrigue at the palace in Walt Disney World rivals that in Game of Thrones,” said Selker in an interview with CFO Dive.

A potential clash in philosophy

What is interesting about the alleged CEO-CFO clash is that McCarthy was instrumental in bringing back former, and now current, CEO Robert Iger after Bob Chapek was ousted after just two years as Disney’s top executive.

During his tenure, Chapek dealt with closing theme parks due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s restrictions, disagreements with Florida’s governor and an over $1.47 billion loss in Disney’s streaming division, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“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,” the report said. 

Since Iger’s return, the Burbank, California-based company has taken swift action to shake things up, with a restructuring plan that allows for a renewed focus on Disney’s streaming business as well as strategic reductions in staff, and detailed plans to restructure Disney’s finance team, CFO Dive previously reported.

“Pretty much since Disney's founding, you had a CEO who was a creative kind of visionary leader, really focused on content and pushing Disney forward in terms of the creative elements of the content, and Chapek wasn’t that guy, and McCarthy as a CFO wasn’t that person either,” said Selker. 

“It’s interesting now to have Iger back, he represents that visionary force and maybe in the big picture, that’s what this is all about, a difference in philosophies, because if you've got a creative, visionary leader, as the CEO, you surround that person with very strong operators,” he said. 

McCarthy was driving a strategic process focused on cost cutting, according to Selker, and allegedly, Iger did not want to move forward on these measures, he said. 

The cost cuts that McCarthy was suggesting, may be necessary, despite Iger’s apparent disagreement in direction.

“Disney posted a disappointing fiscal second quarter as CEO Bob Iger has begun to make his mark. Parks remained impressive with strong top- and bottom-line results and streaming losses continued to shrink, but Disney+ lost subscribers and Hulu posted very modest gains,” Neil Macker, senior equity analyst for Morningstar said in his most recent note on the company which was sent to CFO Dive. 

Although these circulating rumors and reports could have contributed to McCarthy’s departure, her reason to leave is legitimate, stressed Selker.

“I don't mean to minimize the reality of McCarthy’s husband’s situation, not at all, but also, you're looking at some real changes that are happening at Disney,” he said. 

Did gender play a role?

A question worth asking, according to Selker, is whether things would have been different if McCarthy were a man.

Back when Chapek was ousted, McCarthy had gone straight to the board, expressing her concern regarding the future of the Mouse House. 

“If that’s true,” said Selker, “and you're the new CEO coming in, are you going to trust this person who was responsible to a certain degree for the outsting of your predecessor, regardless of the fact that they are a former colleague,” he said. 

Selker said that maybe things would have played out differently if this were a male-male CFO-CEO dynamic, and one executive was challenging the other in business strategy.

The succession

Kevin Lansberry, the company’s current executive vice president and CFO of theme parks Experiences and Products, will serve as the company’s interim CFO, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and McCarthy will step into the role of “strategic advisor” during her leave of absence. 

Her duties under the advisory role will be to “to assist the Company with the identification of, and transition of duties to, a new Chief Financial Officer,” according to the filing.

The Walt Disney Company did not reply to request for comment on McCarthy’s departure, or the rumored clash.