Can Mary Barra helm GM while juggling board gig at embattled Disney?
'It’s prestigious and it pays a lot of money. On the other hand, she gets paid a lot of money to run General Motors.'
Wall Street knows Mary Barra as the CEO of General Motors, a job that earned her a $29.5 million compensation package in 2024 — up 5.9% from a year earlier.
At the same time, she has been juggling her role as a member of The Walt Disney Corp. board of directors, for which she earned $361,657 in cash plus benefits in fiscal year 2024.
While the automotive industry is dealing with one of its most dynamic and challenging periods in history, by every objective measure, Disney has been mired in conflict, most recently pulling late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel off the airwaves in what appeared to be a response to government pressure.
Shareholders assume Barra is focused on running her company, which had a $55.4 billion market value on Monday, Oct. 6, 2025, said Charles Elson, founding director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.
“Are the shareholders of General Motors happy that she serves on such a large company board that obviously takes a lot of her time?” he said to Shifting Gears. “Disney has been in controversy for years — on its CEO succession, on a lot of different issues. Does someone running a company as big as General Motors, with the issues that they are facing now, does that person have the appropriate time to devote?”
Effective board leadership takes the equivalent of one month or two months, which is why directors are paid six-figure salaries plus stock options and other benefits, Elson said.
“If someone is being paid to run General Motors 24/7, can they take two months off to worry about somebody’s else’s business?” he said. “That’s really the question here. For her, it’s prestigious and it pays a lot of money. On the other hand, she gets paid a lot of money to run General Motors.”
Barra is the second-most tenured member of the Disney board, having joined in 2017.
What is Mary Barra’s role?
Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger said in 2017, “Beyond being an incredibly respected leader of a major U.S. company, Mary is recognized as an agent of change with a relentless focus on quality, safety and, most importantly, consumers. Her ability to adapt to a changing technological and consumer-focused landscape makes her uniquely suited for the Disney Board.”
It has navigated significant disruption in recent years.
The Disney board hired CEO Bob Chapek and then fired him in November 2022 after less than three years amid cost management problems and claims of poor leadership. Shortly before his departure, Chapek said Disney would pledge $5 million to groups “working to protect” LGBTQ+ rights during a clash with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose “Don’t Say Gay” law limiting discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools dominated headlines.
The board, including Barra, brought back Bob Iger. (He had retired after running Disney from 2005 to 2020, staying as executive chairman through 2021.)
Now the Disney board is faced with replacing Iger again: His contact expires December 31, 2026. Investor updates have said a CEO is expected to be named in early 2026.
“The selection of Iger’s successor is viewed as a pivotal decision for the company’s future direction amid various industry transformations,” reported WRAL News, the NBC-affiliate in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Sept. 30, 2025.
Now there are fresh challenges occupying board time and energy.
In mid-September, ABC suspended Kimmel “indefinitely” while expressing concern about his remarks related to the death of podcaster Charlie Kirk. Disney (as the parent company of ABC) and some affiliates pulled the show after regulator Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, indicated licensing could be in jeopardy. He told podcaster Benny Johnson, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Carr expanded on his remarks with Sean Hannity at Fox News.
Disney market value dropped by more than $1 billion overnight and continued to plummet more than $3 billion, directly impacting investors that include retirees and pension funds. Some reports estimated the loss at nearly $5 billion, while a consumer boycott led to more than 1.7 million paid subscribers cancelling Hulu and Disney+ within a week.
Podcaster Joe Rogan, who supported President Trump’s bid for the White House in 2024, told his 20 million subscribers after Kimmel’s suspension that anyone who thinks it’s OK to bend to government pressure involving free speech, “Oh my God, you’re crazy … This will be used on you.”
Now Disney investors are pursuing legal action against the Disney Board of Directors, including Barra, alleging they failed to do their fiduciary duty and protect the company.
What Disney wants from Barra
Disney’s demands on Barra have expanded since she joined the board, which has decreased from 12 to 10 members over the past two years. Disney saw the departure of Safra A. Catz, executive vice chair and former CEO of Oracle Corp., in July 2024, and Mark G. Parker, executive chairman of Nike, in January 2025.
Finding a successor to Iger is the Disney board’s top issue. A lot is at stake.
Disney had a market value of $202.7 billion on Monday, Oct. 6, 2025.
“Clearly, shareholders are interested in and care very much about succession,” Iger told CNBC’s David Faber in April 2024. “It is the board’s number one priority. They’ve been spending a significant amount of time on that … They’re treating it with a sense of urgency because it is so important. Clearly shareholders care about that, given what the company has been through these last few years.”
The CEO search is led by the board’s succession planning committee made up of James Gorman as chairman and directors Mary Barra and Calvin McDonald, according to the Disney investor affairs website.
Gorman, chairman emeritus of Morgan Stanley, served as CEO from 2010-2023. Calvin McDonald is CEO of Lululemon Athletica.
“The Committee and the full Board continue to undertake a deliberate and thoughtful succession planning process, including evaluation of transition structures and organizational frameworks, and planning for potential impacts of succession decisions across the Company,” the Disney investor relations page said on Oct. 6, 2025. “The Committee met six times in fiscal 2024, consistently engaging with the full Board on the substance of the decisions to be made. The Board discussed succession planning at each of its regularly scheduled meetings in fiscal 2024. The Committee and Board continue to review internal candidates and external candidates.”
Letter: ‘Breached their fiduciary duties’
Barra is the second most senior member of the Disney board. (She also serves on the Duke University Board of Trustees and boards of directors for the Detroit Economic Club and The Business Roundtable, a non-profit lobbyist group that represents CEOs.)
The most senior Disney board member is Maria Elena “Mel” Lagomasino, CEO of WE Family Offices, a global operation “serving ultra high net worth families.” She joined in 2015 and also serves on The Coca-Cola Company board.
These days, not only is the Disney board managing fallout from the controversy involving Kimmel — he returned to the air on Sept. 23, six days after being pulled aside on Sept. 17 while a live studio audience waited for the start of the show — but its now facing litigation for the decisions.
Two Disney shareholders — the American Federation of Teachers, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, and Reporters Without Borders — sent a letter to Iger requesting internal Disney documents and communications related to the decision to take Kimmel off the air. The groups cited their rights under Delaware law to obtain information from corporations; such requests are granted only in cases of a breach of fiduciary duty and not for routine management decisions, NBC News reported.
The demand seeks to probe potential wrongdoing, mismanagement and fiduciary breaches by the Disney board and its leadership, according to the letter posted by Deadline.com.
The shareholders are pushing for documents, including materials that estimate the potential impact of the suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Disney’s revenue, and agreements with affiliate networks Nexstar and Sinclair, which refused to air the show. They since have reversed position amid discussion of losing access to other network programs including college football and Monday Night Football.
Barra, 63, is an experienced heavy hitter familiar with the spotlight.
She graced the cover of Time magazine in 2014 when she took the helm of GM and later in 2021. Forbes named her the “World’s Most Powerful Woman in Business” in 2016.
For years, Barra told Wall Street she planned to make GM an all-electric carmaker by 2035. Barra has since revamped the plan and is now redirecting resources amid changing consumer trends and tariff policy that directly impacts her GM investors.
But some observers are watching with curiosity how the executive finds the time to balance turmoil in not one industry but two — entertainment and automotive.
Apart from the time commitment, Elson said, associating GM leadership with ongoing drama at Disney can’t be helpful.
“It’s never good to have an executive involved in a controversial issue outside of your own company,” Elson said. “The danger is it affects the public’s view of your employer. You’re over at Disney in the middle of this, how does that affect the perception of how you’re running your company?”
A federal judge declined to dismiss earlier this year a securities fraud lawsuit from Disney investors who claimed the company sold stock and misled investors when trying to hide costs and forecasting Disney+ would be profitable by 2024.
Being a Disney board member requires taking calls, ongoing board discussions, and engaging around the clock, Elson said. (Barra has outlasted Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Fred H. Langhammer of Estée Lauder.)
Kimmel thrust the company back into the spotlight with new scrutiny.
“Disney has a mess on their hands,” Elson said. “There’s going to be a lot of board time devoted to it.”
Shifting Gears sent these questions to GM on Sept. 25, 2025:
How engaged has Barra been with the Kimmel/Disney issue?
How concerned is Barra about being named in the potential investor lawsuit?
In what way does this impact her work with GM?
GM did not respond to messages left by phone, text and email.
CEO focus more critical than ever
On Sept. 12, Automotive News wrote, “Making long-term product decisions in the murkiness of today’s climate requires mapping out multiple scenarios.”
The industry publication then quoted Barra saying, “Product planning in today’s environment requires more agility: ‘Trust me, it’s not an annual process anymore.’”
Immediate issues that demand her attention go beyond product planning.
A federal judge in California gave final approval on Monday, Oct. 6, 2025, to a $150 million deal that GM reached with car owners in Idaho, North Carolina and California over an engine defect, including a $57 million fee and expenses award to lawyers that the judge called “extraordinary” but warranted, according to Law360.
The class-action lawsuit alleged GM knowingly sold and leased vehicles with LC9 engines with piston rings and assemblies that led to excessive oil consumption, which caused issues such as damaged spark plugs, rough idling, acceleration problems, and in some cases, total engine failure, Carscoops reported.
GM fought consumers in court before losing in a 2022 jury verdict.
“It went to trial. This is actually the lede that many people bury,” consumer protection lawyer Steve Lehto said during his Michigan-based podcast with 600,000 subscribers. “Filed in 2016, the lawsuit claimed that internal documents showed the company was quickly alerted” to the defects and failed to fix the issue.
GM cited ongoing litigation among many potential challenges that require the CEO’s attention in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the fiscal year that ended Dec. 31, 2024:
“We are subject to legal proceedings in the U.S. and elsewhere involving various issues, including product liability lawsuits, warranty litigation, class action litigations alleging product defects, emissions litigation, privacy matters, stockholder litigation, labor and employment litigation and claims and actions arising from restructurings and divestitures of operations and assets. In addition, we are subject to various governmental proceedings and investigations. A negative outcome in one or more of these proceedings could result in the imposition of damages, including punitive damages, fines, reputational harm, civil lawsuits and criminal penalties, interruptions of business, modification of business practices, equitable remedies and other sanctions against us or our personnel as well as legal and other costs, all of which may be significant.”
Phoebe Wall Howard is an award-winning automotive reporter who covered the industry for The Detroit Free Press from 2017-2024.
More:
He left Rivian for Jeep. Here’s why, what’s next
Why CEO making $39.9M abruptly quit Stellantis
In autos, it’s Detroit & Ontario vs. the World
Shoe choice won’t affect braking now
A blind engineer invented cruise control
Note: As a former reporter at The Des Moines Register, I’m a proud member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, which offers a great mix of political analysis, features and news.
I mistakenly thought that board membership was not too intensive and was almost ornamental. Thank you for clarifying the potential impact of being a board member on one’s primary responsibilities. Very informative. I will be watching for her decision regarding future involvement with Disney.
Been waiting since OWSR to read this column. Interesting aspects of board members' roles, responsibilities and risks (personal, corporate, shareholder and consumer). My impression is that most board members never face accountability - I could write a book on that topic. Thanks Phoebe, your research and writing always challenge me to think out of my zone.