This guy was making $150,000 a day because corporate America was out of control.

Only 3 months as Head of Communications at Disney

Allison Morrow, CNN

Reporters often joke that journalists turn to the “dark side” when they do PR. After reading about Jeff Morrell, a hero I didn’t know I needed, I understand the temptation.

Here’s the thing: A regulatory filing from Disney last week, first published by the Wall Street Journal, drew attention to Morrell’s incredibly short but hugely lucrative tenure at the company.

As Disney’s head of public relations, in just three months from January to April last year, Morrell was earning about $150,000 a day, according to my colleague Chris Isidore.

This amount included salary, bonuses and $537,438 for his family’s move from London to Los Angeles, as well as an additional $500,000 to “account for his unique circumstances” related to his family’s relocation after his departure.

In addition, Disney buys out the remainder of Morrell’s contract. He will receive an additional $4 million in the current fiscal year ending October 1 to pay off the remainder of his contract, as well as a targeted bonus he would have received for 2022.

So all in all, adjusted for unpaid performance bonus and pending payouts, Morrell walks away with $10.3 million for exactly a quarter of a year’s work. And he’s already landed another job as president of global strategy and communications at Teneo, a consulting firm.

Morrell did not respond to a request for comment on his Disney payment package, and Disney declined to comment on the details given in the documentation.

Why not for long?

Shortly after he started, Morrell got a pretty nasty deal when then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek clumsily chimed in on a debate over Florida legislation banning the teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation in third grade. “.

In short, Disney, the state’s largest private employer, has tried to remain silent on the bill. The employees were furious. So Capek opposed. Then Republican leaders were furious.

The company announced Morrell’s departure days after the PR nightmare.

(To be fair, I don’t think having Olivia Pope on the payroll would have pulled Disney out of this scandal unscathed. But also…someone had to take responsibility. In the end, Czapek also got a kick, mitigated by a severance package of $20 million barely takes the edge off the embarrassment of being replaced by his own predecessor, Bob Iger.)

Bottom line: Jeff Morrell’s story confirms my suspicion that leadership positions are meaningless and that corporate America is just a big game that you can learn to play moderately good to moderately bad and still act like a thug.

NUMBER OF THE DAY: $16 billion

Citadel is now the most successful hedge fund after making $16 billion last year. A Miami-based fund founded and managed by Ken Griffin has topped the 2022 World’s Best Performing Hedge Fund rankings, based on LCH Investments.

Thanks to Citadel’s record-breaking results last year, the fund’s total earnings since inception have been nearly $66 billion. It knocked out Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater with a $58.4 billion profit for the first time in seven years.

BITTERSWEET

As I look into my 2023 crystal ball, I envision business and economic stories that will dominate the news so much that you’ll all get bored. I see the words “recession”, “cryptocurrency”, “debt ceiling”, “M&M’s scandals…”

Yet I owe it to my duty as a journalist not to shy away from chilling news. I know, I know, you’re all tired of the relentless media coverage of the M&M Spokescandy saga, aka the battle of the culture wars, that is shaping social discourse in 2023 from Our Lord.

Here’s the thing: after all the (fabricated?) drama surrounding the desexualization of M&M Green and the feminization of its Purple counterpart, M&M is suspending its entire advertising campaign. In any case, not for long.

The company says it didn’t think anyone would notice the changes in the characters’ appearance. “We definitely didn’t think it was going to break the internet,” the press release said, which frankly reeked of champagne and high fives.

Oh, you didn’t think anyone would notice, M&M marketing wizards? Well, we did.

ICYMI: Last year, M&M’s introduced a new look for their anthropomorphic candy characters.

While most of the updates were minor, the replacement of Green’s boots with more practical white sneakers — “the kind that Melanie Griffith’s character in Working Girl changes into at her desk to show she’s a boss girl with a head for business.” and flesh for sin,” wrote E.J. Dixon in a provocatively titled article in Rolling Stone, which, frankly, I wish I had written—it didn’t escape the wrath of the internet.

“Give Green her boots back,” the Washington Post yelled. A petition calling to “keep green M&M sexy” has garnered over 20,000 signatures. M&Ms didn’t give up, but said in a statement on Monday that “even candy shoes can cause polarization.”

Then came another change: a new character, Purple, joined the line as part of an International Women’s Day limited edition package.

Apparently, gender identity – and I can’t stress this enough – fictional presenting junk food in human form, fodder for the Fox News police woke up.

“If this is what you need to test, an M&M in the color you think is associated with feminism, then I’m worried about you,” Fox News host Martha McCallum said, adding that the move *checked notes*... emboldened China? “I think it makes China say, ‘Oh, okay, keep focusing on this.’ Focus on giving people M&M’s of their own color as we take over all the mineral deposits around the world.”

So, instead of simply ignoring these performance-pearl reactions, M&M’s is taking an “indefinite pause” from the performing team.

Comedian Maya Rudolph (10/10, no notes), meanwhile, is stepping in to lure the brand, “allowing M&M’s colorful line-up of reps to step back and take a new path to pursue other hobbies,” an M&M’s spokesperson told CNN. in an email.

My colleague Danielle Wiener-Bronner has more to say about this dubious saga.

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