Disney’s legal team is set to become ‘much smaller,’ chief legal and global affairs officer Horacio Gutierrez has warned in a memo seen by Legal Business.
Gutierrez, who has headed up the legal and global affairs (LGA) department at Disney since joining from Spotify in 2022, writes in the memo that ‘every part’ of the company ‘is being asked to reinvent itself and become radically more efficient,’ announcing a ‘transformation process’ called ‘LGA 2.0.’
The process will require ‘hard choices about where and how we deploy our resources and investments – including our staffing investments,’ Gutierrez writes, adding: ‘I want to be direct about what that means: LGA will be a much smaller organization than it is today, and some of you will be personally affected by decisions we make in this process.’
Gutierrez writes that ‘the professions that comprise LGA’ are ‘going through their own reinvention as technology reshapes how work gets done’ and underlying operating models are transformed.
The memo also announces the establishment of a new transformation office called LGA innovation, fiscal accountability, and transformation (LIFT), to be headed up by Disney’s current director of legal operations, Vishal Anand, who is being promoted to VP.
Among other priorities, the new office will be tasked to ‘thoughtfully advance our use of technology and AI,’ Gutierrez writes.
Last Friday (24 September), Disney posted a job advertisement for a director of AI enablement and legal engineering, to focus on ‘AI-enabled process engineering, workflow modernization, automation, knowledge enablement, and practical adoption of new tools and ways of working.’
The role will act as a trusted advisor to senior LGA leaders, and be ‘a key member of the LIFT team.’
In addition to workflow automation, the memo lists a number of other changes the LGA department will consider, including moving to self-service models, in- and outsourcing certain work, and engaging alternative legal service providers.
‘This will be hard work,’ Gutierrez writes, ‘but if we do this right, at the end of this journey LGA 2.0 will be the most advanced, modern, and efficient legal and global affairs organization in our industry.’
Citing a goal to ‘do this once’ and ‘do it well,’ Gutierrez writes that LGA will go through the process ‘as expeditiously as possible,’ and bring ‘meaningful clarity and stability’ by no later than the middle of FY27.
Earlier this year it was widely reported that new Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro had announced plans to cut around 1,000 positions across the company, while in July animation studio Pixar, a Disney subsidiary, submitted a notice to the Employment Development Department of the State of California, notifying its intent to eliminate 108 positions.
The changes come as Disney has hired its first chief technology officer, appointing Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand to the position.
The press release announcing Anand’s hire cites his expertise in infrastructure, consumer technology, and AI, and points to Disney’s ‘focus on technology as a driver of growth across the company’ under D’Amaro.
Photo by Jose Marroquin on Unsplash
