Hasbro’s CEO took a $1.7 billion hit to focus on its "core mission"

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks is doing less so that he can do more. After taking the helm at the toy company in 2022, Cocks made some bold moves. Although some components of its eOne television and movie business had already been sold off, he got rid of the rest of it last year at a $1.7 billion loss. The enterprise was burning through around $600 million in production every year, and perhaps most importantly, it took away resources from the company’s main mission: Making toys and games. 

"We hadn't paid enough attention to our core toy business. We hadn't been upgrading our internal talent or investing in our supply chain or our innovation pipeline," Cocks told my Fortune colleague Phil Wahba in a new interview. 

The executive says that his move to cut losses was prompted by some key questions he asked when he took over: “'What is our core? What is our focus as a company?”

“It became quickly clear to me that it's about play and creating shared joy through play,” he said. “We'd strayed from our core mission.”

Hasbro is still fighting an uphill battle in a slower post-pandemic toy market, and the company also recently cut its product assortment in half to cull their unprofitable items. A runaway hit would help (remember the Tickle Me Elmo craze of days past?) but mainstays like Play-Doh are still top performers for the company. 

“We are focusing more and more on evergreen play patterns,” he says. “And if there happens also to be a hit or a big entertainment moment, we will chase it.”

Check out the rest of Fortune’s interview with Cocks here. 

Leadership Tip of the Week 💡

Talent will only get you so far, according to Roger Federer, one of the most talented men to ever play tennis. “The truth is I had to work very hard to make it look easy,” Federer said in a recent graduation speech, writes Fortune’s Orianna Rosa Royle. “You want to become a master at overcoming hard moments,” he advises. “That is to me the sign of a champion.” 

Leadership Next

In 1922, 25 military veterans came together to start USAA. At the time, military families were having difficulty getting car insurance. Fast-forward to today, and USAA provides insurance and financial services to millions of veterans and their families. This clear mission, says CEO Wayne Peacock, has actually helped the 102-year-old company remain innovative.

On this episode of #LeadershipNext, Peacock talks about inflation’s impact on the insurance and housing sectors, hiring military veterans, and how early investments in technology gave USAA an advantage during the pandemic.

Listen to the episode and subscribe to Leadership Next wherever you listen to podcasts, or read the full transcript here.

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