Andy Mooney

Andrew "Andy" P. Mooney (born 1955)[1] is the CEO of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and former chairman of Disney Consumer Products (DCP). Mooney joined the Walt Disney Company as president of DCP in December 1999 and was promoted to chairman in May 2003.[2][3] Vertical businesses under Mooney's leadership and the DCP umbrella were The Baby Einstein Company, Disney Publishing Worldwide and newly re-acquired retail chain The Disney Store. He is credited with pioneering the $45 billion Disney Princess franchise.

For the Canadian politician, see Andy Mooney (politician).

Early life

Andy Mooney is a native of Whitburn, West Lothian, United Kingdom and is the son of a miner.[4] He holds an Accounting Certificate in the UK.

He played the electric guitar in various bands during and after high school in hopes of becoming a professional musician. He was a semi-professional musician through his 20s until he moved to the United States from the UK.[5]

Career

Prior to Disney, Mooney spent 20 years with Nike, Inc. Originally joining Nike's United Kingdom division as chief financial officer, he transitioned to marketing in 1982, holding several senior positions before becoming chief marketing officer for Nike in the United States in 1994. Immediately prior to joining DCP, Mooney was chief marketing officer and head of Nike's $3 billion Global Apparel organization with additional responsibilities for worldwide marketing strategies for the Nike and Jordan brands. He led the reorganization of Nike's brand marketing activities and introduced new advertising strategies.

In 2000, Mooney, having recently been made chairman of Disney Consumer Products Worldwide, went to see a Disney on Ice show in Phoenix, Arizona, where he saw little girls dressed as princesses, wearing handmade gowns with mismatched jewelry. Though he noted the deep affection for the characters with which these outfits were made, he imagined that ones assembled professionally by Disney could be lucrative. He packaged the Disney Princesses under a single brand, which sold items such as a yellow organza Belle costume, Sleeping Beauty pajamas and matching accessories. As of 2011, the franchise is a $4 billion-a-year brand featuring 26,000 products.[6]

In early 2001, his executive assistant, Pamela, brought him an idea of creating a line of wedding dresses inspired by the Disney Princesses. Giving the go-ahead, Pamela approached Vera Wang for the opportunity to design the gowns. Ms. Wang declined the opportunity, which resulted in Mooney pulling together a group of Disney creative people. Under Mooney's leadership this team, the Disney Global Creative team created he Disney Fairy Tale Weddings line. The wedding dresses are inspired by the princess characters, and they later were designed by Kirstie Kelly.

Mooney announced his resignation from Disney on September 6, 2011, to pursue interests with other companies.[7][8]

In March 2012, Mooney joined the Board of shopkick, the mobile shopping application,[9] along with Kleiner Perkins and Reid Hoffman.

In January 2013, Quiksilver announced that Mooney would be its new president and chief executive officer, replacing Bob McKnight.[10] On March 27, 2015, Quiksilver announced the termination of Mooney as CEO of the company. He was replaced as CEO by Pierre Agnes, who had worked at Quiksilver for 27 years and was promoted to president in November 2014.[11][12]

On June 2, 2015, Mooney was appointed CEO of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, replacing Scott Gilbertson.[13] As part of Mooney's strategy to concentrate on Digital assets rather than manufacture, Fender re-located to Los Angeles, California and heavily invested in expertise to bring Mooney's vision to fruition. No published information exists on the Return On Investment (ROI) for Fender Play, Fender Songs, Fender Academy or Mooney's digital strategy in general. Fender's manufacturing continues to re-brand/rename existing product lines in order to take advantage of competition law and new product introduction price protection. In January 2020 Fender were fined £4.5 million ($5.9 million) for breaking British competition law. The fine is the largest ever imposed by the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for price fixing, or what it terms as "resale price maintenance".[14]

In the fall of 2015 Mooney executed the re-structure of Fender Musical Instruments Europe (FMIE) set up in the early 2000s by Bill Schultz and Bill Mendello with the appointment of Graeme Mathieson as FMIE Managing Director.[15] Mathieson executed Mooney's vision of a single European entity shortly after the UK decided to exit the EU. Mathieson whose political leanings were openly Xenophobic seemed to be a bizarre appointment for a European MD, and after two short years "disappeared" during the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) Investigation [16]

References
  1. "From Whitburn to Disneyland". Daily Record. November 20, 2008. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
  2. "Disney Hires Away Nike Marketer For Consumer-Products Division". The Wall Street Journal. December 14, 1999.
  3. Bond, Paul (September 6, 2011). "Disney's Head of Consumer Products Resigns". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on April 9, 2014.
  4. Wang, Amy (30 September 2020). "Future 25: Andy Mooney, CEO of Fender". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
  5. Sharma, Amit (15 October 2020). "Fender CEO Andy Mooney: "When that article came out with the headline 'Guitar is dead', that was the definition of fake news"". guitarworld.com. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
  6. McClellan, Jennifer (April 5, 2011). "4/7-10: Disney on Ice 'Princess Classics' in Phoenix". The Arizona Republic.
  7. Frankel, Daniel (September 6, 2011). "Disney Consumer Products Chairman Andy Mooney Resigns". Reuters.
  8. Chmielewski, Dawn C. (September 7, 2011). "Disney Consumer Products Chairman Andy Mooney resigning". Los Angeles Times.
  9. Rao, Leena (March 29, 2012). "Location-Based Shopping App Shopkick Adds Former Disney And Nike Exec To Board". TechCrunch.
  10. Connelly, Laylan (January 3, 2013). "Quiksilver co-founder and longtime CEO steps down". The Orange County Register. Retrieved January 3, 2013.
  11. Beilfuss, Lisa (September 13, 2015). "Quiksilver Ousts CEO, Installs 27-Year Company Veteran as Chief Executive". The Orange County Register. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  12. Beilfuss, Lisa (March 27, 2015). "Quiksilver Ousts CEO, Installs 27-Year Company Veteran as Chief Executive". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved March 27, 2015.
  13. Farrell, Jason (June 3, 2015). "Fender Musical Instruments Corporation Appoints Andy Mooney to CEO". Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
  14. Smirke, Richard (24 January 2020). "Fender Agrees to Pay Record Fine for U.K. Price Fixing". Billboard. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
  15. Duggan, Ronnie (4 September 2015). "New European MD for Fender". Billboard. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  16. Music Instrument News (19 July 2018). "Where's Graeme? Mystery grows over Fender's Mathieson". Music Instrument News. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.