The Walt Disney Company is getting a new CEO. Tuesday morning, the company's board of directors announced that Josh D'Amaro will replace Bob Iger, who's been at the helm for nearly two decades.
D'Amaro is a businessman who's been with the company for 28 years. He's been the chairman of Disney Experiences around the world: cruise ships, resorts and theme parks, including an upcoming one in Abu Dhabi.
Disney's corporate website calls D'Amaro, 54, the "architect of the largest global expansion in the history of Disney Experiences," to the tune of $36 billion.
D'Amaro is set to take Bob Iger's place in March.
In September, Iger took some heat after Disney-owned network ABC temporarily suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel following his on-air comments on the suspect in the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
This is not the first time Iger has stepped down. He led Disney from 2005 to 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic. He remained creative chairman but was replaced by Bob Chapek, with whom he clashed.
The board asked Iger to return in 2022, when Disney was losing $1 billion every quarter. Iger was credited with turning the company back around. He restructured Disney, put into place $5.5 billion of cost cuts, and laid off employees.
In a statement, Iger said he was thrilled for D'Amaro, calling him "the right person to become our next CEO."
"When I came back three years ago, I had a tremendous amount that needed fixing. But anyone who runs a company also knows that it can't just be about fixing, it has to be about preparing a company for its future," Iger told investors on the year's first quarterly earnings call. "I also believe that … in the world that changes as much as it does that in some form or another, the status quo is a mistake. And I'm certain that my successor will not do that."
Iger will stay on as a senior adviser and board member, but will retire at the end of the year.
D'Amaro will be tasked with steering the world's biggest media company, including Disney movies, 20th Century Studios, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, Pixar, ABC, FX and Hulu, theme parks and all those Disney experiences.
As CEO, he'll also work with a new licensing deal with OpenAI's artificial intelligence platform Sora.
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