The high-stakes $28 billion deal between Hollywood studios Paramount and Skydance Media Company has careened into Oracle CEO Safra Catz.
Catz, who has spent the past decade at the helm of Oracle, served on the Walt Disney board for six years. She has now stepped down, the media and entertainment giant announced yesterday.
The departure was amicable, and Disney CEO Robert Iger praised Catz for her “invaluable insight that has helped shape the company’s long-term strategic planning amid a rapidly changing technological landscape that affects our businesses.” Catz, similarly, thanked Iger and his leadership team and wished the company and its employees “every success in the future.”
One complicating factor about that success, however, is that Disney is a direct competitor to the entity forged by the Paramount-Skydance deal, New Paramount. New Paramount is led by David Ellison as chairman and CEO. David Ellison is heir to Oracle cofounder, chairman, and chief technology officer Lawrence Ellison, who is also Catz’s boss on the Oracle board. Ellison also happens to be among the richest people in the world with an estimated $172 billion net worth and is investing $6 billion in his son's Paramount takeover
While there’s nothing legally wrong about Catz serving on the board of the competitor to a company funded and run by the son of one of her bosses and colleagues, it might make things a bit awkward in the Disney boardroom.
“Corporate directors are trusted with proprietary information,” Georgetown University associate professor and corporate governance expert Jason Schloetzer told Fortune. “Directors are good at understanding when something they learn in the boardroom can and cannot be shared elsewhere.”
And given that Catz is a CEO, she very likely understands the importance of confidentiality, too, Schloetzer said.
“I suspect Catz’s departure is more optics than anything else,” he said. “It may help others in Disney’s boardroom retain a level of confidence to have sensitive conversations about the changing media industry.”
Oracle did not respond to a request for comment.
There’s also crossover between some of the key talent at Skydance and Disney. Skydance’s head of animation is John Lasseter, a former chief creative officer at Disney. Lasseter directed Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Cars, and Cars 2 and executive produced Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and many others. He left Disney in 2018 after news reports about his conduct at work and #MeToo complaints. The next year, he took the lead at Skydance, which has produced films such as Luck and Spellbound and has an untitled Jack and the Beanstalk project in the works for next year.
