PEORIA, AZ — The announcement of a change in leadership at Disney raised the eyebrows of a college student who has been working toward a goal at the Magic Kingdom for much of her life.
When asked bluntly if she wants to be the next CEO of Disney, Cori Borgstadt hesitated for a moment and said in part, “There’s a lot to happen before then.”
From her dorm room at Texas Tech, Borgstadt, 18, is just focused on the whole new world of getting through her first year of college.
When she was growing up in Peoria, you could say she "wished upon a star" and wanted to one day work with Disney, the "happiest place on earth."
“Disney, it’s for everyone. Their movies, even though they are animated they’re for all audiences. They’re for adults. I’m enjoying the movies that I enjoyed years ago,” she said.
At just three years old, her grandmother bought her one share of Disney stock. At the time it was just under $20 a share.
That allowed her family to attend Disney’s annual shareholder’s meeting.
The little girl who loved Lightning McQueen of Cars – got to ask a question in front of hundreds of other shareholders.
“Hi, my name is Cori and I’m a shareholder from Arizona. And my question is how do you decide if a movie is going to have a sequel or not? I can’t wait until I get to see Cars 2,” she said.
“My mom talks about... at one of the meetings, the microphone was too high, so she had to hold me up while I asked a question,” said Borgstadt.
That trip was the first of now 16 family vacations to Disney’s annual shareholder’s meeting.
As Cori matured, so did the questions she asked nearly every time. Most recently, she’s asked how Disney is connecting at a personal level in a virtual world. And she didn’t hold back her ambitions with Disney CEO Bob Iger.
“What advice would you give a kid like me who would want your job someday?” she asked.
A crowd of hundreds can be heard laughing at the heartwarming moment in the archived audio of the meeting on Disney’s website.
At that moment, Iger told her to keep coming to the shareholder's meetings.
Cori’s inquisitive nature paved the way for Iger to say, ‘Be our guest’ for a private tour of Pixar Studios.
“I still remember it to this day, it was one of my favorite days of my life,” she said of that day meeting Iger.
As a freshman economics major, Cori is focused on her studies, but knowing someone at the Magic Kingdom isn’t a bad thing.
“If I was made CEO today, I would ask him what I should do and how to run the company. Ultimately, I want to learn before I do so I don’t make uneducated changes,” she said.