We’re still awaiting the white smoke from the Casey’s Corner chimney, but it’s all but a done deal. Barring a sudden last minute change, Parks & Resorts Chair Josh D’Amaro will be the next Disney CEO. Here’s the latest, plus our commentary.
Although there have been scattered reports over the last week that Josh D’Amaro is widely considered the frontrunner and Wall Street favorite for CEO, what sealed the deal for us was this hitting the Bloomberg terminal. With that, analysts and investors we watch, particularly ones who haven’t really partaken in the horse race element of this, are treating it as more or less official that Josh D’Amaro is the next Disney CEO.
According to that Bloomberg report, the board of Walt Disney Company is “aligning on promoting theme-park division chairman Josh D’Amaro to the role of chief executive officer and will vote on naming a new leader in the coming week, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Bloomberg does not that the Disney Board of Directors “could still change its mind.” However, this to us only further reinforces that Bloomberg has spoken to sources on the board, and the above is actual insight into their position at this time.
“The board has not yet selected the next CEO of the Walt Disney Co. and once that decision is made, we will announce it,” a Disney spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg.
Disney’s Succession Planning Committee has undertaken a rigorous and exhaustive process over the last two years. What going to materially change in the next day or two? And if something did change, wouldn’t that undermine the entire process, revealing it wasn’t so much a process at all, but more whim-driven?
Accordingly, we view this caveat about the board potentially changing its mind as simply a CYA. Or perhaps not. Maybe the board is deadlocked. Or perhaps they read the comments section on Disney Tourist Blog and realized they had the process wrong all along.
That the most prudent, fair, and savvy selection process is one led not by humans, but by the sagest of creatures: the humble hippopotamus. We look forward to the forthcoming announcement that the actual CEO selection will be a television event, simulcast on Disney+ and the ABC family of networks, live from Kilimanjaro Safaris. The last two years were all for show, and Disney actually plans to do things Punxsutawney Phil style: whoever the hippo approaches is the heir apparent.
This is a joke, obviously, but I honestly feel like letting a hippo choose the CEO in 2020 would’ve yielded a far better outcome than how things played out. So perhaps there is some merit to the idea.
The appointment of Josh D’Amaro as CEO will conclude a three-year search for a successor to Bob Iger. That process really got serious in 2024, when Disney Chairman James Gorman was brought aboard to helm the Succession Planning Committee. Gorman had previously led the CEO transition process at Morgan Stanley and was highly-coveted for his success there.
In a regulatory filing ahead of Disney’s 2026 Annual Meeting, Gorman had this to say in his letter to shareholders:
Management succession planning remains a top priority for the Board, reflecting its importance to business continuity and long-term shareholder value. Oversight of the process is led by our dedicated Succession Planning Committee, and all directors have actively participated in a rigorous and ongoing evaluation of potential successor candidates, including direct engagement, performance assessment and consideration of leadership capabilities aligned with the Company’s long-term strategy. The appointment of the next CEO will be determined by the full Board, and we currently expect to announce the appointment of the Company’s next CEO in early 2026.
The Bloomberg piece is just one of several that all corroborate the timing and likely frontrunner. As covered over the weekend in Bob Iger Eyes Early Exit from Disney CEO Seat, there were also new reports in both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times indicating that the board vote–and likely the announcement–will come this week.
Our Commentary
Nothing is official until it’s official. Obviously. But there have been countless credible reports that D’Amaro has been the favorite, with a growing chorus of these in the last month.
Some of these sound very much like purposefully-placed leaks by the Disney Succession Planning Committee to telegraph its choice. For our part, we’ve been hearing chatter from people within Disney for months now–pretty much nonstop since the announcement of Abu Dhabi Disneyland–that they viewed D’Amaro as the clear frontrunner.
Prior to this point, there had been a lot of speculation and gossip, mostly in the Hollywood trades. The shift to credible reports in Bloomberg, WSJ, and NYT are something different. The NYT piece also doubles as a glowing profile of Josh D’Amaro, drawing a distinction between him and Chapek and parallels to Iger.
This is a sharp contrast to what happened last time. Although Disney has played a bit of revisionist history in the last couple of years to make this sound like a more deliberate and contemplated process, that’s not how it felt at the time.
To the contrary, here’s what we wrote back in February 2020 when Disney dropped the bombshell news that Bob Iger was stepping down as CEO, effective immediately, to be replaced by Bob Chapek:
After extending his tenure on a couple of occasions, we anticipated that Bob Iger would groom a replacement and slowly reveal that individual, perhaps with carefully-placed “rumors” in trade publications. Disney would set the stage for that person as Iger’s clear successor even before an official announcement. With that, we expected that there’d be an announcement that said successor would take the helm at a future date a year or so down the road upon Iger’s exit, with a smooth transition coming first.
In that same commentary in February 2020, we also wrote this about Bob Chapek:
Our outsider’s perspective on Bob Chapek is not exactly glowing. As is the case with many Disney theme park fans, we’re skeptical of his consumer products background. There are plenty of anecdotes about him that suggest he doesn’t “get” theme parks, and his own words in publicly-available interviews reinforce how he views the parks and Disney brand as a whole.
Throughout the following two years, we also wrote repeatedly that Bob Chapek was likely brought in to fulfill a specific role, acting as a hatchet man to make unpopular decisions that were necessary fiscal austerity measures when times were tough.
Our position was that Bob Chapek was a placeholder CEO. The one who would do the dirty work and help Disney emerge from a time of crisis as a stronger and leaner company than before.
I’d also add that our first piece of Josh D’Amaro was also in February 2020, shortly after he was named President of Walt Disney World and before the first Bob Swap. That underscored how, unlike Chapek, D’Amaro did (and does) “get” Disney.
I mention all of this for a few purposes. One is the obvious and obligatory “I was right” back-patting session. I get plenty wrong, and am not shy to admit when that happens. But I also think that grants me a bit of latitude to also claim the wins, and I clocked all of this from the very beginning in early 2020.
What we’re seeing now with the slow-trickle of reports in progressively more credible and authoritative sources is exactly how I would’ve expected this process to play out before, and again in 2026. This is the Walt Disney Company telegraphing to Wall Street investors and analysts, industry insiders, and even fans that Josh D’Amaro is the next CEO. It’s preparing markets and everyone else for the inevitable outcome, so the announcement is obvious and expected when it does happen as opposed to disruptive.
With that said, if all of these credible reports are somehow wrong, oh boy. If Josh D’Amaro is not named CEO or if, worse yet, some outside candidate no one has ever heard of is announced later this week, that is not great news. It won’t be indicative of a truly secret selection process or Disney landing a big fish who can turn things around. It’ll mean there’s still a lot of disfunction at Disney or, I guess, that D’Amaro’s camp is truly savvy at placing stories to sway the selection process. Either way, not good!
That is absolutely not what we expect. This time is different. The Walt Disney Company has actually done its due diligence and embarked upon a proper selection search. They are now leaking their intentions to prepare markets and fans for the news, and make the process as smooth as possible.
Some of you may not like the outcome, but we’ll be back later this week once the inevitable announcement is made to discuss why this is good news for Walt Disney World and Disneyland fans. (Or, for a sneak peek, check out “Josh D’Amaro Gains Steam as Bob Iger’s Successor. Here’s Why He Should be Disney’s Next CEO.“) And be sure to stay tuned for the next episode of “Days of Disney C-Suite Lives,” America’s #1 soap opera among the key business and Hollywood demos.
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OUR THOUGHTS
Who do you think will be named the next CEO of the Walt Disney Company? Will it be Josh D’Amaro, Dana Walden, Tom Staggs, Bob Iger (again), or none of the above? Who should it be? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
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