Disney shares dipped 1.5% on Tuesday after the corporate topped Experiences chairman Josh D’Amaro as its subsequent CEO and Leisure co-chair Dana Walden as president and chief inventive officer.
Iger, whose contract is set to run out on the finish of 2026will transition into the position of senior advisor and stay a board member, topic to the vote at Disney’s annual assembly on March 18. He’ll step down from the manager committee of the board after the annual assembly.
Disney inventory, which is buying and selling at round $102 per share as of Tuesday morning, has fallen 9.8% prior to now month, 13.8% prior to now six months, 9.7% prior to now 12 months and 43% prior to now 5 years.
Guggenheim Securities analyst Michael Morris says D’Amaro’s appointment represents a possible inflection level for Disney’s strategic route. He added that D’Amaro’s experience within the firm’s Experiences division “positions him nicely to drive a extra built-in strategy to leveraging Disney’s manufacturers throughout companies.”
“We consider his management may end in extra disciplined content material funding selections, higher coordination between content material creation and distribution, and enhanced give attention to high-return client touchpoints,” Morris added. “Whereas some observers view the timing as offering a better setup for the incoming CEO, we consider the challenges going through the enterprise — together with linear decline, streaming profitability and Experiences funding returns — stay substantial and would require decisive strategic motion.”
D’Amaro, who first joined Disney in 1998, has beforehand held management roles each within the U.S. and internationally throughout finance, enterprise technique, advertising and marketing, inventive growth and operations, together with chief monetary officer of Disney Client Merchandise World Licensing and president of Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort.
As chairman of the Experiences division, D’Amaro has led a crew of 185,000 solid members throughout 12 theme parks and 57 resort motels in six international locations within the U.S., Europe and Asia. He has overseen the enlargement of Disney theme parks throughout the globe, with new lands and points of interest reminiscent of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, the Marvel-themed Avengers Campus, Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway and World of Frozen.
Along with the corporate’s theme parks, his oversight consists of Walt Disney Imagineering, Disney Client Merchandise, Disney Cruise Line, Disney Signature Experiences, Disney Trip Membership, Adventures by Disney and Storyliving by Disney.
D’Amaro’s appointment comes after a years-long search course of led by the Disney board’s succession planning committee, which incorporates chairman James Gorman, who led his personal seek for a successor after an 18-year run as Morgan Stanley’s CEO, and administrators Mary Barra, Jeremy Darroch and Calvin McDonald.
He was one in every of 4 inside candidates within the working for the job. Different Disney executives into account included Walden, Disney Leisure co-chair Alan Bergman and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro. All 4 candidates went by way of a “rigorous” preparation course of that included mentorship from Iger, exterior teaching and engagement with all 10 of the board’s administrators.
In fiscal 2025 alone, the succession planning committee met 5 instances. It reported to the total board at each scheduled assembly and reserved time to fulfill with out Iger current as acceptable. It additionally mentioned succession with Iger current no less than annually.
As a part of the discussions, the board’s compensation committee reviewed and regarded shareholder suggestions to find out a brand new CEO pay bundle when succession takes place and design an government compensation program geared toward “driving the creation of long-term shareholder worth.” In 2025, Iger was paid $45.8 million, an 11.5% improve from $41.1 million in 2024. D’Amaro will obtain a pay bundle of roughly $38 million in his first 12 months, whereas Walden will obtain roughly $24 million.
Iger returned to Disney as CEO in November 2022 following the disastrous ouster of his successor-turned-predecessor Bob Chapek.
Chapek, who beforehand served as the corporate’s parks chief earlier than taking over the position of CEO from 2020 to 2022, had a tenure that was marked by a number of missteps, together with a poorly dealt with lawsuit from Scarlett Johansson over her wage tied to the streaming launch of “Black Widow” in addition to his preliminary choice to keep mum about Florida’s “Don’t Say Homosexual” invoice, drawing the ire of quite a few workers. He additionally was in cost because the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the globe, which resulted in non permanent closures of Disney’s theme parks and hundreds of workers who had been both furloughed or laid off.
Previous to handing off the reins to Chapek, Iger served as Disney’s CEO for 15 years from 2005 to 2020, throughout which period he oversaw the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm and twenty first Century Fox. He has famously been a popular CEO, delaying his departure date a number of instances.
Iger’s newest time period has included quite a few milestones, reminiscent of a $60 billion funding within the firm’s cruise ships, theme parks and new applied sciences by way of 2030, Disney+ reaching streaming profitability, the launch of the ESPN Limitless streaming service, the sale of Star India to Reliance industries, buying full management of Hulu and a majority stake in Fubo and a landmark cope with OpenAI.
But it surely additionally included a good variety of challenges, together with the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strike in 2023, a proxy battle with activist investor Nelson Peltz, the failed launch of Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery joint streaming enterprise Venu Sports activities, a $16 million authorized settlement between ABC Information and President Donald Trump, field workplace struggles and the non permanent suspension of ABC late evening host Jimmy Kimmel.
“After I got here again three years in the past, I had an amazing quantity that wanted fixing. However anybody who runs an organization additionally is aware of that it might probably’t simply be about fixing. It needs to be getting ready an organization for its future and actually placing place, taking steps to create alternatives for progress,” Iger advised analysts throughout Disney’s first quarter earnings name on Monday. “The excellent news is that the corporate is in significantly better form in the present day than it was three years in the past, as a result of we now have performed plenty of fixing, however we’ve additionally put in place quite a few alternatives, together with the funding throughout our experiences enterprise to primarily broaden in each location we do enterprise and on the excessive seas.”
“I additionally consider that on the earth that modifications as a lot because it does that in some type or one other, attempting to protect the established order is a mistake, and I’m sure that my successor won’t do this,” he continued. “So that they’ll be handed, I believe, a very good hand by way of the energy of the corporate, quite a few alternatives to develop, and in addition the exhortation that in a world that modifications, you additionally should proceed to vary and evolve.”
When requested how he’d prefer to be remembered throughout a podcast interview in November, Iger stated he hoped he’d be remembered as somebody who helped usher Disney to “a spot that even Walt can be pleased with.”
“What which means is extra nice storytelling to a bigger viewers, extra innovation, extra risk-taking, extra actually creation of happiness. It’s actually that easy,” he stated. “At one level I assumed, ‘Effectively, OK, you’re now working Disney. What’s essentially the most you need out of it?’ Effectively, don’t screw it up, however it’s rather more than that. I actually have been aware of the obligation that I really feel has been handed to me to make it even higher than it’s ever been.”
As for his successor, Iger stated that he hopes they’d be “respectful of our previous and nicely conscious of the values that basically created the worth of the corporate within the first place, and carry them ahead, however not let something that’s been performed prior to now get in the best way of bringing the corporate into the long run.”
“That’s actually fixed innovation, a continuing exploration, fixed need to reinvent or to invent much more than anything. That’s what I’d need,” he shared. “However I believe we do occupy a spot on the earth as nice storytellers, maybe perhaps the best in lots of respects. And I’d hope that place would proceed for years and years, a long time forward.”
