The Disney heiress who slammed CEO Bob Iger's pay as 'insane' explains why she and her 3 siblings turned down roles in the company

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The Disney heiress who slammed CEO Bob Iger's pay as 'insane' explains why she and her 3 siblings turned down roles in the company

abigail disney

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Abigail Disney isn't happy with the way her great uncle's media empire is run - but she never considered taking a role in the company to try and change it from within, she told the Financial Times.

"I kind of caused as much trouble as if I had a seat on the board," Disney said told the Financial Times, referring to her public criticism of Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger's pay. The heiress said that the gap between Iger's salary and that of Disneyland employees was a "moral issue" while testifying in front of the US House Committee on Financial Services in May. She has said that she'd previously raised the issue privately to no avail.

Business Insider reported earlier this year that As You Sow, a non-profit focusing on promoting corporate responsibility, estimates that Iger is paid 787 times more than the median salary of a Disney employee. In 2017, Iger earned more than $36 million.

Despite her desire to reform the company's pay policy, sitting on its board "would be a waste of my time," Disney said, according to the Financial Times.

One of the key mistakes boards of directors make is not engaging with new ideas and allowing meetings to become perfunctory, Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer David Dodson previously told Business Insider. "If you leave those board meetings consistently prepared to do something differently because you learned something from the board meeting, that's the mark of a good board," Dodson said.

Read more: A family feud over a $400 million trust fund, a massive fortune that left one heiress with an inferiority complex, and a sprawling media empire. Meet the Disney family.

Even if Disney had wanted to, she believes that she and her siblings Tim, Roy, and Susan would not have been welcomed into the company. A dispute between their father, Roy E. Disney, and former CEO Micheal Eisner resulted in Eisner's firing in 2005. "No CEO in his right mind would ever let any one of us back on the board," Disney told the Financial Times.

Disney is not only concerned with the wealth gap inside the company. She was among a group of 19 ultra-wealthy Americans who signed an open letter to presidential candidates advocating for a moderate wealth tax in June. George Soros and members of the Pritzker and Gund families also signed. Disney's personal net worth is $120 million.

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