EXCLUSIVE: An end-of-week memo from Disney‘s Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer has fired a warning shot that layoffs are coming amidst a “transformation process” that includes “automating certain workflows by leveraging the latest technologies.”
Without actually saying that AI is taking over or that job losses are on the horizon, the memo by Horacio Gutierrez strongly implies that. Sent out at noon on Sept. 18 to the LGA department, which counts less than 1,000 members globally, the missive has taken on a life of its own. It is being circulated among the Disney rank and file, with many fearing that the blunt warning to LGA staffers applies to them too as they are bracing for rounds of layoffs, expected to begin as early as next week. Unspecified cuts within the LGA department are not connected to the next round of cuts, I hear. I’m told.
The memo has also been shared throughout the entertainment law community in L.A., NYC and DC.
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Noting that the Mouse House’s “legal, government relations, operations, and others, are going through their own reinvention as technology reshapes how work gets done, and the operating models that underpin those professions,” the multi-tasked Gutierrez says he’s “taking a dispassionate look at every aspect of how we do our work, so we can do it in a more efficient and cost-effective manner.”
Gutierrez joined Disney from Spotify in late 2021 under Bob Chapek‘s short-lived reign as CEO. Replacing Disney veteran Alan Braverman in the top in-house legal job, Gutierrez was one of few key Chapek lieutenants to keep his job when Bob Iger returned as CEO in late 2022.
“Obviously, this will require hard choices about where and how we deploy our resources and investments, including our staffing investments and how we work will look different in the months and years ahead,” Gutierrez writes in the memo, adding, “LGA will be a much smaller organization than it is today, and some of you will personally be affected by decisions we make in this process. As a result, we’ll have to consider a whole range of new models for different workloads, including automating certain workflows by leveraging the latest technologies, moving to self-service models where appropriate, engaging alternative legal providers and others, and new expanded share services, even outsourcing.”
Proving once again that timing is everything in this town, Gutierrez’s memo came on the same day that Disney unveiled Karandeep Anand as the company’s very first Chief Technology Officer. The ex-Character.AI, CEO will report directly to Disney boss Josh D’Amaro. With the most recent rounds of job cuts hitting Disney in April and then July, execs made no secret on the Aug. 5 earnings call that more is to come. To that, Gutierrez email also came as the deadline was looming for qualifying longtime Disney executives to take the company’s voluntary early retirement offer, first unveiled in August by EVP and Chief People Officer Sonia Coleman. The process was always expected to be followed by involuntary layoffs.
Cutting to the chase in his September 18 memo, and invoking the name of D’Amaro, Gutierrez goes on to tell his staff that “when teams work smarter, Disney can serve more fans at lower costs, freeing up capital to reinvest in the content, guest experiences, and technology infrastructure that keep the company out in front.”
“Josh’s vision is of a Disney that succeeds in a changing market by breaking internal walls and embracing technology to amplify what makes it great, not by clinging to the way things always have been done.”
Disney would not comment on Gutierrez’s memo or on a timeline and scope of the upcoming job cuts when contacted Thursday by Deadline.
Nellie Andreeva contributed to this report
