Disney hires Pepsi veteran Hugh Johnston as new CFO

The Walt Disney Company (DIS) has appointed longtime PepsiCo (PEP) CFO Hugh Johnston as its new Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President. Johnston will assume the Disney CFO role on December 4th, 2023 after 34 years leading the finance operations at Pepsi.

Yahoo Finance's Brad Smith and Seana Smith discuss this transition, providing insights on how Johnston's new appointment could benefit Disney's future success.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

影片文字轉錄稿

BRAD SMITH: From dating to Disney, let's talk about this one. The media giant has also announced a shakeup in its C-suite. PepsiCo CFO Hugh Johnston and friend of Yahoo Finance taking over of as the CFO and Sr. Executive Vice President at Disney effective December 4.

CEO Bob Iger said in a statement, his expertise will serve Disney and its shareholders well as we continue to do the transformative work that we are doing to drive growth and value creation. So this no doubt a huge move here going from the food and beverage space over to the parks streaming and merchandise space at Disney.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, we got to see how Hugh Johnston is going to, I guess, take his 34 years that he spent with Disney, how that carries over into-- sorry, 34 years he spent with Pepsi, how that carries over into his new career here at Disney. The fact that he's leaving Pepsi after a three-decade long career, more than three decades, certainly just a bit surprising here.

We spoke to him just a few months ago about some of the trends that he's seeing from consumers, from their buying power obviously, insight that is going to be helpful when Disney figures out the path forward for their company right now under Bob Iger. We know Iger has announced a number of strategic moves here since retaking the CEO job just last year.

So we'll see what exactly this all means for Pepsi. At least they're saying that James Caulfield, who's currently serves as the finance chief for PepsiCo foods business in the North American division. He's going to be named executive vice president and chief financial officer. So Johnston from PepsiCo moving on over to Disney.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah, this is a transformative time that he's stepping into over at Disney. And you mentioned some of the strategic moves. Two things come to mind here for what Bob Iger and this company and the executive team now need to show to both investors, but some of the largest investors and the institutional investors, considering the activist campaigns that have come forward and some of them seeking board seats in those campaigns.

This is a critical announcement and perhaps signals how much they're trying to show that they've got steady hands at the wheel over at Disney, especially with someone who's got such a storied history as a chief financial officer, as Hugh Johnston for another household name in PepsiCo. All that considered too, Disney is still what-- at not just the lows that we've seen over the course of this year, but multi-year lows in its share value.

So there is a lot that needs to be evaluated. And it'll be interesting to see where Hugh Johnston kind of sets his first 90-day priorities, especially given the fact that you've got an entity in ESPN that the executive team has already talked about. What do we do with this?

SEANA SMITH: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And facing investor activist investor pressure here once again from Nelson Peltz. So hopefully, we'll hear a little bit more about all of this on the earnings that Disney has coming up later this week.