Susan Arnold is 67, and as of January 1, 2022, she is the leader of The Walt Disney Company. Although she joined the entertainment empire 14 years ago, she held several positions before becoming the first woman to head Mickey Mouse’s multinational empire. “As I step into this new role as Chairman of the Board, I look forward to continuing to serve the long-term interests of Disney’s shareholders and working closely with CEO Bob Chapek as he builds upon the Company’s century-long legacy of creative excellence and innovation,” Arnold explained in a press release issued by the company following her appointment.
Her beginnings. It all started in 1980, when Susan Arnold was an anonymous dishwashing product assistant at Procter & Gamble. But this graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Pittsburgh worked her way up the ladder with a unique strategy: developing totally realistic business guidelines by putting herself in the shoes of consumers. For example, she decided to purchase and apply hair dye to her teenage son and in doing so learned that the process at home was more complicated than customers were actually led to believe. Another time she and her team lived on a U$120 budget for two weeks in order to understand the decision-making process for purchases when money is tight. “You can lose touch with reality, and we aim to make sure that doesn’t happen to us,” Arnold told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.
Lift-off at P&G. For a long time she was tasked with expanding the beauty products line, a business she grew to become one-third of P&G’s revenue in 2000. With these achievements and credentials under her belt and having risen to level of President of Global Operations, she decided to leave the company after 30 years.
Disney in the crosshairs. She joined the Disney Board in 2007. From this position, she was able to watch the major transformations the entertainment empire was experiencing under the leadership of Robert Iger, Disney’s CEO since 2005, whom Arnold later replaced. What Iger did was turn Disney into a multiplatform brand. First he bought the Pixar Animation Studios. Next, he acquired Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox, which today are the source of the movies that underpin Disney+, the platform that launched in November 2019. In two years, Disney+ has acquired 118 million subscribers in 60 countries. Susan Arnold knows that her predecessor set a very high bar, which is why she is making new bets. Experts point out that the pace of new subscriptions has slowed, but the company has reassured shareholders that it will have between 230 and 260 million users on the platform by 2024. And it is not outlandish to think so, given that next year the service will start operations in 50 countries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Southern Africa. The company has also committed to spending between US$8 billion and US$9 billion to develop more than 340 exclusive titles for its digital channels over the next few years.
Multiple formulas. As part of her new action plan, Arnold is betting on sports, which will help differentiate the company from competitors such as Amazon. As a result, starting in 2023 and for 10 years, Disney has the broadcasting rights for the NFL footbal league, one of the most popular sports in the United States. “Susan is an unbelievably highly regarded executive, and it is impossible to quantify how she has contributed to the company with her wealth of experience, unwavering integrity, and expert judgment since joining the Board in 2007.” wrote Iger in a statement distributed by Disney.
The parks. Among the group’s sectors hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis are amusement parks and cruises, which had generated US$26 billion in revenue in 2019. “We expect a substantial recovery in the number of international visitors to U.S. parks during 2022, ” explains Vice President Christine McCarthy. Disney has since seen consumer appetite grow, and sales at the parks have increased 30% in the last three months. The new CEO is also expected to provide new leadership for Disney’s theme park in mainland China, the Shanghai Disney Resort opened in 2016.
Pro-women. For the past two decades, Arnold has remained one of the most powerful and influential women in the business world according to lists published by Fortune, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. She has been a promoter of leadership positions for women in companies, and for years she was part of the executive committee of Catalyst, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting female talent. Arnold has also combined her time at Disney with seats on other boards: McDonald’s, from 2008 to 2016, and as an investment executive at The Carlyle Group, the largest private equity firm on the planet, a position she vacated when she took over as Disney CEO.
Personal life. Arnold lives with her longtime partner, Diana Salter, an advertising executive with whom she has two children: Mark and Sarah. She also loves surfing. And so Disney’s new president joins the list of the most powerful women in Hollywood taking her place alongside Marvel production president Victoria Alonso, showrunner Shonda Rhimes, Netflix executive Bela Bajaria, and James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli.
