The Junior Who Rewrote the CEO’s Op-Ed: How Josh Simon’s Boldness Built a $300M Turnaround

(SeaPRwire) –

By: Robert Kensington

Josh Simon walked into Disney as the most junior person in the room and did something that would make most executives nervous. He rewrote Michael Eisner’s op-ed with a red pen. Not a gentle suggestion. Not an edited draft passed through layers of approval. A direct rewrite of the CEO’s words. That moment reveals everything about the kind of operator who eventually turned Funko around.

The official narrative paints this as a cautionary tale about bold young employees finding their voice. Simon himself tells it that way. But the deeper story is about how one act of unsolicited competence can rewire an entire organizational hierarchy. Eisner didn’t fire him. He embraced him. A relationship formed that lasted decades. The lesson isn’t just about audacity. It’s about the rare ability to see value where others see only protocol.

Simon’s career proves this pattern repeats. At Nike, he moved through strategy, product, and merchandising. At Netflix, he ran consumer products as a vice president. Each step followed the same logic. Master the fundamentals, identify gaps no one else saw, fill them without waiting for permission. The Disney turnaround story gets retold because it’s memorable. But the real insight lies in what followed. He built three different companies across three different industries using the same playbook.

Now at Funko, the playbook has produced visible results. Stock up 35% in a year. Net income flipped from a $40.5 million loss to a $15.4 million profit. Sales rose 7% year over year, with Europe climbing nearly 20%. The KPop Demon Hunters vinyl line captured 7% of net sales in its first quarter. None of this happened by accident. It happened because Simon recognized that Funko’s problem wasn’t just bad inventory management. It was a fundamental disconnect between what fans wanted and what the company shipped. The old leadership treated pop culture collectibles as licensed merchandise. Simon sees them as a canvas for fan engagement. That distinction matters more than most executives understand.

The common thread across all three CEOs Simon worked for — Eisner, Mark Parker, and Ted Sarandos — was an almost unnatural intensity toward their own products. Parker sketched sneakers in boardroom meetings. Sarandos consumed film and television obsessively, tracing back to his home video store days. Eisner attended test screenings and wrote detailed notes on scripts. They weren’t distant executives managing spreadsheets. They were people who genuinely loved what their companies made. Simon is applying that same energy to Funko, treating every product launch as an opportunity rather than a line item.

This approach challenges a widely held assumption in modern corporate leadership. The prevailing wisdom says success comes from process, governance, and incremental improvement. Simon’s track record suggests otherwise. The companies that break out of stagnation are the ones led by people who refuse to accept the existing boundaries of their industry. Funko may have been a collectible toy company two years ago. Under Simon, it’s becoming something else entirely. Whether that something else scales sustainably remains to be seen. The early numbers suggest the direction is correct.

Author bio: Robert Kensington, an overseas entrepreneurial veteran with decades of experience in real-economy industrial investment and expansion