Following the announcement of Disneyland Abu Dhabi, chairman of Disney Experiences Josh D’Amaro is poised to take over as CEO of The Walt Disney Company when Bob Iger retires (again).
Disney CEO Search
In a new article about Hollywood’s succession politics, The Hollywood Reporter says D’Amaro is in the “pole position” to take over as CEO. D’Amaro is one of four Disney executives long-considered the most likely candidates to succeed Iger. With recent success and upcoming expansion for Disney Parks, D’Amaro is now the top contender, but the deal isn’t sealed.
D’Amaro joined The Walt Disney Company in 1998, five years after he graduated from Georgetown with a business degree. In his first several years with the company, he took up the positions of VP of sales and travel trade marketing, director of business planning and strategy development, and CFO of Disney Consumer Products Licensing.
In 2010, he moved to Disney Parks (now Disney Experiences) as VP of Adventures by Disney. From 2013 to 2014, he was VP of Disney’s Animal Kingdom, overseeing the park’s Pandora – The World of Avatar expansion. He then moved to Walt Disney World’s Resort & Transportation Operations. He was then CCO of Walt Disney World for a year before becoming President of Disneyland Park. After a year and a half, he bounced back to Florida as President of Walt Disney World Resort.
He’s held his current position overseeing all of Disney Experiences since 2020, when former Disney Parks Chairman Bob Chapek rose to the position of CEO.
The $60 billion investment in Disney Experiences, expansions to Disneyland Resort with DisneylandForward, a collaboration with Fortnite, and the recently announced Disneyland Abu Dhabi are all boons for D’Amaro’s prospects. But Chapek’s tenure as CEO is still a shadow hanging over D’Amaro.
Chapek — hand-picked by Iger despite popular opinion believing Kevin Mayer was the obvious choice — was barely CEO for two years before he was forced out by the Disney board and Iger returned to the position. Coming from the parks division himself, Chapek proved to have difficulty with the Hollywood side of the business. D’Amaro has tried to get ahead of that by showcasing his own relationships with Hollywood creatives.
Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, told THR, “This is the problem at Disney: How can you expect someone from theme parks to understand the process of making television and film? And how can you expect someone from television and film to understand how to work with the Chinese government? What’s the old saying — nobody knows anything. In this case, it’s nobody knows everything.”
Second in the running for CEO is Co-Chairman of Disney Entertainment Dana Walden, who has been considered the frontrunner in the past. Walden was previously Chairman and CEO of Fox Television Group. She came to Disney with the 2019 Fox acquisition and replaced Peter Rice as Chairman of Disney General Entertainment Content in 2022. She was named Co-Chairman of Disney Entertainment in 2023, sharing responsibilities with Alan Bergman, who is also on the CEO shortlist.
Walden and Bergman would have the Hollywood experience necessary to be the company’s chief. Walden would also be Disney’s first female CEO, however, THR believes her friendship with Kamala Harris could be an issue, considering the Trump administration’s penchant for attacking media companies.
Bergman has been with Disney since 1996, overseeing various entertainment divisions, but he’s said to lack the “magnetism” necessary to replace Iger. The fourth potential successor is ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro, who is reportedly not interested in the role.
As THR points out, it’s been a tumultuous few years for Hollywood between increased consolidation, the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2023 writer and actor strikes, streaming wars, shifts in tech, and more.
Producer Amy Baer said, “The film and TV business has changed so drastically that I don’t know the profile of the next generation of leaders. There are so many big open questions. It used to be easy to see who would get the top jobs because the way movies and television were made and distributed was predictable. Nothing is predictable anymore.”
“Right now, with all the chaos in the industry, stability is like a drug,” said Amblin Partners president of strategy and communications, Terry Press. “You want to be around it and you want to be in business with it.”
Disney brought in Morgan Stanley Chairman James P. Gorman to lead the search for Iger’s successor, later electing him Chairman of the Board. Disney hopes to announce a successor in early 2026, allowing time for a transition before Iger’s contract ends that December.
Though there have been some rumors of external candidates taking on Disney’s CEO role, that’s not how things are usually done.
Fox founder Barry Diller told THR, “Hiring from the outside at the CEO level is an admission of failure. Ideally, you bring someone in early in their career and they marinate in your enterprise, gain experience and succeed whoever is senior. That’s by far the better process. Bringing in a CEO whom you don’t know — and I don’t care how many hours you interview someone, you don’t know them — is a bad dice throw and rarely works.”
Walden may be a relative newcomer to The Walt Disney Company, but given her time at Fox, she’s had plenty of time to “marinate,” as have D’Amaro and Bergman. Iger’s choice might come down to who wants the position more.
THR recounts a story from a recent Disney corporate retreat, when Iger reportedly told an executive, “You need to be more selfish.”
Disney denies that Iger said such a thing. Chief Communication Officer Kristina Schake said, “That is not something Bob said, or would ever say, and the incident described simply never happened.”
Whether true or not, the rumored comment reflects the company’s succession battle, and how each candidate will have to fight to win.
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