Deadline; Bob Iger’s Throwback Thursday: Disney CEO’s 2019 Self-Evaluation Pops Up In Pay-Equity Class Action

Story from Deadline:

Bob Iger likely wishes 2023 looked a lot more like 2019.

In a document dump this week for the recently class-action-certified pay-equity suits against Disney, the Mouse House CEO’s 2019 corporate self-evaluation was among the papers placed in the Los Angeles Superior Court’s docket.

“In 2019, Disney was awarded an A+ as one of ‘America’s Most Trustworthy Public Companies’ and was #1 in a ‘Brand Intimacy Study’ recognizing the power in building bonds with consumers,” reads the bullet-point evaluation Iger wrote four years ago to the Disney board. “The company was also named one of the ‘World’s Most Admired Companies’ by Fortune and one of the world’s ‘Most Reputable Companies’ by Forbes. Fast Company ranked Disney as the #1 ‘Most Innovative Company’ in Media.”

Those accolades were added to by Iger himself, who also noted: “In fiscal 2019, we prepared for the historical launch of Disney+. We successfully executed a highly-anticipated Investor Day providing an extensive overview of all our direct-to-consumer offerings, launched an unprecedented company-wide marketing effort and tested the BAMTech platform in the Netherlands to positive reviews. Our stock price has increased from $116.94 at the start of the fiscal year to $148.72 as of Nov. 13, 2019.”

Those heady heights of 2019 — which saw Iger rewarded with a $47.5 million paycheck the next year — sure seem like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away for the executive and the corporation. Today, Disney stock stands at about $93 as the company has suffered from less-than-stellar box office results of late, big layoffs and an overall contraction of profits and content. And of course, Iger’s second stint as CEO now is seeing yet another proxy board fight from Nelson Peltz.

The filings on December 12 in the four-year-old gender-discrimination and pay-equity case come as a LASC judge granted plaintiffs and Walt Disney Studios staffers LaRonda Rasmussen and Karen Moore a long-hoped-for class-action certification late last week. This blow to Disney, which has repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to get this case tossed out or trimmed, means nearly 10,000 women who work for or have worked for the Mouse House can join the lawsuit. That could see this case go from $150 million in lost wages to more than $300 million.

As a point of contrast to Iger’s glorious self-evaluation in late 2019 and subsequent big payout the next year, which actually was almost $20 million less than he made in fiscal 2018, another document put in the docket for the pay-equity case appeared to indicate how officially Disney leaned in to denying women equal compensation.

“HR has come back declining my request to promote Nancy from Manager to Director,” says a December 2014 email from Disney’s Music and Soundtracks President Mitchell Leib to Disney bigwig Sean Bailey about employee Nancy Dolan. “They’ve offered Sr. Manager with a $5k bump in salary merit increase of which she would have basically been entitled to regardless. … Additionally, when we look at the Employee Surveys and see the terrible scores for our division and our company overall in the opportunity and feeling valued categories and then wonder why it’s so, you need only look at Nancy to see the inequity. As a proven leader, I also have a hard time believing that my impression of what’s just for Nancy could be skewed from reality. I understand HR holding to the company line but I must appeal the decision and request once again that we promote Nancy to Director. What do I have to do for this to be reconsidered?”

Bailey responded by complimenting Leib on “a well-stated argument” and promised to go back to HR about Dolan. That clearly didn’t go far or was beyond Bailey’s sphere of influence because Dolan is still a senior manager at the company, not a director all these years later.

Dolan, it should be noted, is one of several female Disney staffers who joined Rasmussen and Moore’s suit after it was first filed and before the matter received class action certification.

Neither Disney nor attorneys for the plaintiffs in the pay-equity suits responded to Deadline’s request for comment about the documents.

With class-action certification now given, this matter could go to trial within a year, unless of course Disney settles.