Susan Fox ’88, Vice President, Government Relations, The Walt Disney Company on Media and Entertainment

Susan Fox, Vice President of Government Relations at The Walt Disney Company, shared her knowledge and experiences after many years of being an intermediator between the U.S. federal government and one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. Following her graduation from Lafayette in 1988, Fox attended the University of Virginia for her post-graduate education. From there she worked a three-year stint in a D.C. law firm and another two years as the senior legal advisor to William Kennard, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at the time. She started her career at Disney in March of 2001.

Fox described the entertainment industry as being composed of two kinds of players, those who create content and those who distribute it. According to her, Disney is mostly a content driven company other than a few radio stations they still own. Disney is famous for their children’s movies, but Fox noted that they also own eight TV stations, the entire ABC network, and a significant stake in Hulu.

Fox illustrated the size of Walt Disney, but she also noted that their size does not leave them unaffected or unchallenged by issues facing the media today.  One of those challenges today is predicting how the Trump administration will rule on the issue of net neutrality. Fox said that she is operating under the assumption that the new administration will deregulate in some way because of having a republican in the white house and a republican majority in both the house and senate. Outside the realm of the government, Fox adverted to the fact that the entertainment industry changes as fast as technology does. Password sharing and piracy makes entertainment available at very little cost to consumers, and often times the money paid for that content doesn’t end up in the hands of those who created it.

Fox gave an engaging presentation about her career path, The Walt Disney Company and all that she has learned from her professional life to provide knowledgeable insight into the media and entertainment industry.