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.
In her current role for a year-and-a-half, Ferro has discovered that what advertisers are looking for around the world is pretty consistent. "It's a little different in France, or it's a little different in Argentina, but ultimately the goal is pretty much the same around the world. People are advertising because they want to move product," she says. "It's really how you execute it in these markets and give them the tools and information to be able to do that." Ferro's team helps advertisers buy space across global brands like Marvel and Disney, but also attached to localized content. She's working to develop a business model for what's known as "flagship," ESPN's incoming sports streaming service.
Ferro reports up to Disney Entertainment co-chairs Dana Walden (No. 34 on Fortune's Most Powerful Women list) and Alan Bergman, as well as ESPN chair Jimmy Pitaro. She's had multiple bosses before—and says having to meet the needs of more than one boss has been key to her growth. "I always had to solve for the business, not for the person," she says.
She advises rising execs who work for her today to approach the rapidly changing media and advertising business "from a place of optimism and opportunity, not of fear and delay."
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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