D’Amaro’s division generated $10 billion in working revenue final fiscal 12 months
CEO contender Walden named content material chief and president
Competitors is deepening as Netflix and Paramount eye Warner Bros belongings
D’Amaro’s unfamiliarity with Hollywood may very well be a problem – analysts
(Provides remark from former Disney CEO Michael Eisner in paragraphs 26-27)
Feb 3 (Reuters) – Walt Disney on Tuesday named theme parks head Josh D’Amaro as CEO, ending years of succession uncertainty and putting a longtime insider on the helm as synthetic intelligence and a wave of consolidation upend the media business.
D’Amaro, 54, will take the reins from Bob Iger, 74, on the firm’s annual investor assembly on March 18. Iger, credited with shaping the fashionable Disney by way of offers for Pixar, Marvel and twenty first Century Fox, will keep on as a senior adviser and board member till his retirement from the corporate on December 31.
Disney additionally named leisure co-chief Dana Walden, a inventive government within the mould of Iger with a string of economic and important hits and robust expertise ties, as chief content material officer and president.
Walden was among the many inner candidates for the CEO position together with leisure co-chief Alan Bergman and ESPN head Jimmy Pitaro.
Succession has lengthy been the storied leisure large’s weak point – it delayed Iger’s retirement a number of occasions and introduced him again in 2022 to exchange his handpicked successor, Bob Chapek, after the pandemic hobbled its enterprise. To keep away from one other misstep, Disney in 2024 named Morgan Stanley veteran James Gorman as its chairman to supervise the CEO search. Gorman, who led a easy transition on the Wall Road financial institution, joined after the Home of Mouse prolonged Iger’s tenure for a fifth time by way of 2026. The search committee evaluated 100 exterior candidates along with inner contenders.
Gorman stated the committee thought-about the candidates’ imaginative and prescient for the corporate, their understanding of the Disney model, their inventive chops, and their embrace of technological innovation – significantly synthetic intelligence.
“There’s a lot that he is accomplished creatively, and storytelling, and such a deep understanding of the model and the place the business goes,” stated Gorman. “I believed it was a superb alternative.”
With D’Amaro, Disney is popping to an almost three-decade firm veteran who runs its largest revenue engine – the experiences unit that features theme parks and cruises and whose gross sales have grown yearly after the pandemic receded in 2021.
Final fiscal 12 months, the division turned a file working revenue of practically $10 billion, making up practically 60% of the corporate’s earnings.
Disney shares had been down 0.7% on Tuesday.
D’Amaro is main the corporate’s push into the Center East with a theme park within the United Arab Emirates’ capital, Abu Dhabi, that may mark its first main new park in practically a decade.
CHALLENGES FACING NEW CEO However a decline in worldwide guests to the U.S. is weighing on the parks enterprise, with Disney shares falling greater than 7% on Monday after the corporate flagged the “headwind” whilst its total gross sales and revenue exceeded expectations.
Whereas D’Amaro is a well-recognized face for guests to Walt Disney World in Florida, analysts have stated he’s little identified in Hollywood. That would pose a problem as he confronts an leisure business that generative AI instruments threaten to reshape by automating writing, modifying and visible results. The timing is especially high-stakes because the announcement comes simply months earlier than the business’s main guild contracts – together with these for writers and actors – expire in Could and June, setting the stage for a brand new spherical of labor negotiations. A breakdown in talks, partially over using AI, had led to twin strikes in 2023 by the unions that hobbled a lot of Hollywood manufacturing and price round $6 billion in misplaced output. Disney is very beneath scrutiny after it agreed late final 12 months to let OpenAI use characters from its Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel franchises within the startup’s Sora AI video generator. It has additionally agreed to take a position $1 billion within the startup.
Chapek, one other parks veteran turned CEO, had struggled with expertise relations and bungled a dispute with Scarlett Johansson over the simultaneous streaming and theatrical launch of “Black Widow,” which resulted in a lawsuit and eventual settlement.
“These are large boots to fill. Disney can sick afford one other messy handover,” PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore stated.
“Finally, the important thing to Disney’s success and future progress lies in content material creation, which drives the flywheel throughout theatrical releases, experiences, licensing and streaming.” Competitors can be heating up as Netflix and Paramount attempt to bulk up by shopping for Warner Bros belongings, with both mixture anticipated to lead to a serious streaming and studio rival.
D’Amaro can even should navigate political stress from the Trump administration. In September, the corporate pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Reside” after the host’s remarks concerning the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk drew a risk from the communications regulator. It rapidly reinstated the late-night present following backlash over the choice. President Donald Trump stated in November that licenses utilized by associates of Disney-owned ABC ought to be “taken away” after a reporter for the community questioned him concerning the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Disney has set D’Amaro’s annual base wage at $2.5 million, and he’ll obtain a long-term incentive award with a goal worth of $26.3 million every fiscal 12 months.
Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner lauded the selection of Iger’s successor, and the choice to raise Walden, in a publish on the social media platform X.
“My recommendation to Josh is proceed Bob Iger’s technique that creativity will deal with income, all the time shield the model,” wrote Eisner. “And hold shut the phrases of Walt Disney: ‘We like to entertain kings and queens, however the very important factor to recollect is that this—each visitor receives the VIP remedy.'”
(Reporting by Additya Soni in Bengaruru; Extra Reporting by Harshita Varghese and daybreak Chmielewski; modifying by Arun Koyyur, Anil D’silva, Chris Rees and Nick Ziemski)