Good morning! OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar opposes Elon Musk, outgoing Small Business Administration leader reflects on her four years, and Disney's advertising boss got to the top by raising her hand.
- All about ads. Rita Ferro started her career as a manager of international sales at ESPN. When Disney and ESPN's advertising teams were being combined in 1998, her new boss asked for recommendations for a head of sales. She put forward her own team: "We have a sales team, right?" she told her manager.
Speaking up worked out for Ferro, who two decades later is Disney's president of global advertising. She oversees a multibillion-dollar advertising portfolio across linear TV and streaming at the entertainment giant with $89 billion in annual revenue, from ABC and ESPN to Disney Plus. Earlier this month, she presented about Disney's advertising business at CES in Las Vegas. Advertisers on its streaming products are reaching 157 million ad-supported monthly active users globally, she shared, outlining a new methodology for standardizing measurement in streaming.
