In the multimillion-dollar proxy clash between Disney and activists led by Nelson Peltz, the biggest battle was over the process to find a successor to Bob Iger, the CEO who has run the entertainment empire for most of the past 18 years.
Iger saw off Peltz definitively earlier this month. But with the proxy battle out of the way, the unresolved question of who will take over from him has risen to the top of investors’ agendas.
As the activists poured scorn on Disney’s succession planning, members of its board said last month that they were reviewing “internal and external candidates with the help of a well-regarded national search firm”.
Four people have emerged as the most likely internal candidates: Josh D’Amaro, who runs Disney’s theme parks; Alan Bergman, co-chair of Disney Entertainment; Jimmy Pitaro, chair of the ESPN sports division; and Dana Walden, co-chair of Disney Entertainment.
Iger’s contract ends in 2026, so any internal vetting process will be protracted, and it will be hard for investors to determine how it is progressing. But it is likely to be closely watched, given Disney’s unhappy record on succession planning.
Iger first intended to retire by 2015, but he extended his contract multiple times before stepping aside in 2020. His replacement, Bob Chapek, only lasted 33 months, after which Iger returned.
“Succession is absolutely critical for Disney and one of Iger’s most important tasks will be to find his replacement,” said Disney shareholder Chris Rossbach, managing partner at J Stern & Co, a private investment office. “We’d like to see a clear process and a deep bench of management talent.”
David Larcker, director of the Corporate Governance Research Initiative at Stanford, cautioned that “bake-off” processes among internal candidates can be fraught, as Disney demonstrated in a previous succession plan that led key executives to leave.
“It makes it a political process, where people are allying internally with different candidates,” Larcker said. “From a board perspective, they don’t want this to be a spectacle.”
Given Iger’s previous contract extensions, some openly wonder whether he will leave in 2026. But Rossbach believes he will.
“Our expectation is that Iger will conclude his term in 2026, although the exact way he does so will depend on who his successor is.”
Since his return in late 2022, Iger’s job has become one of slashing costs, fending off activists and fixing a laundry list of problems. Some of the thorniest of those challenges have been handed to the four people who are considered best placed to succeed him. How they perform may well determine who claims the throne in the Magic Kingdom.
Dana Walden, co-chair of Disney Entertainment
At Disney, where many executives have worked for decades, Walden counts as a relative newcomer.
Walden, 59, arrived in 2019 following Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, where she was chief executive of the company’s television group. She came with deep connections in Hollywood, including hitmaking showrunners such as Ryan Murphy (Glee) and Elizabeth Meriwether (New Girl). She has a reputation for having an eye for talent.
If she were to be named chief executive, she would be the first woman to run Disney.
In her 25 years at Fox, the studios she oversaw racked up 184 Emmy awards — and she took the Fox Broadcast group from fourth place to first during her four years running the business.
At Disney, she oversees an array of TV businesses including ABC and ABC News, Disney’s TV studios, FX and National Geographic — all of which are in decline thanks to cord-cutting viewers ditching cable subscriptions and the rise of streaming.
To deal with this problem, Walden — who is also responsible for the streaming business with co-chair Alan Bergman — wants to make every new show a streaming show. This will mean that programmes running on traditional TV networks will also feed into Disney’s streaming services, helping to satisfy the insatiable demand for new content on the Hulu and Disney+ platforms. In theory, this should also lead to less “churn” or streaming cancellations.
The model is ABC’s hit sitcom Abbott Elementary, which also appears on Hulu — and reaches a broader audience.
Walden is also credited with revitalising kids’ programming at Disney by championing shows such as Percy Jackson & The Olympians — and for bringing The Kardashians to Hulu, where it has become a breakout hit for the streamer.
Alan Bergman, co-chair of Disney Entertainment
Bergman is a rare creature in Hollywood: a studio chief who appears to shun the spotlight.
But despite keeping a low profile, Bergman, 58, is immensely powerful in Hollywood thanks to his oversight of Disney’s movie studios — a portfolio that includes Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Searchlight, 20th Century and the classic Disney studios.
Since becoming president of the studios in 2005, he has overseen remarkable success: Disney has produced four films that grossed more than $2bn at the box office and 22 others that topped the $1bn mark.
Recently, however, Bergman’s division has been attracting attention for a number of disappointments, leading Iger to announce that the company was scaling back its release slate in order to refocus on quality.
Recent lacklustre box office performance became one of the talking points for Peltz in his unsuccessful bid for a seat on Disney’s board. Upcoming releases including Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine could help change the narrative, but many analysts expect a full turnaround to take time.
Bergman’s brief also includes Disney’s streaming business, a responsibility he shares with Walden. The pair are overseeing an aggressive push for profitability in streaming, which the company expects to reach later this year. Ending the losses in streaming is a top priority for Iger.
Since Bergman joined Disney in 1996, he has gained a reputation as a savvy businessman, having served as the studio’s chief financial officer. And he is said to have gained the respect of the heads of the various studios, including Marvel’s Kevin Feige and Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy — both of whom are recalibrating after stretching too far to feed the Disney+ streaming service during its early push for subscribers.
A return to hitmaking form would be a boon to Bergman’s standing.
Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN chair
Pitaro began his business career during the 1990s dotcom boom and had a long stint at Yahoo before joining Disney’s interactive division in 2010. As chair of ESPN, the sports network, he will need to draw heavily on his experience in digital media as he shifts the cable TV giant into a full streaming service next year.
ESPN, a pioneering cable sports network, was a chief growth engine for Disney for decades — drawing in advertising as well as hefty carriage fees from cable providers. As cord-cutting siphoned off cable subscribers in 2018, Pitaro launched ESPN+, an online service that offers documentaries and other sports content that does not appear on the TV channel.
Now Pitaro is preparing to launch ESPN as a “flagship” streaming service in August 2025 that will carry programming that appears on the TV network as well as gaming, shopping and other interactive content. A lot is riding on the launch. Iger said recently that he wants it to become the “pre-eminent digital sports platform”.
Before that big step, ESPN is also launching a sports streaming joint venture with Fox and Warner Bros this autumn. Iger has called the new service, which is aimed at younger people who have never had a cable subscription, a “significant moment for Disney”.
Investors are concerned that ESPN will have difficulty generating enough revenue growth to keep up with the rising costs of sports rights as it makes the transition to streaming, according to Wells Fargo analysts. But they also note that ESPN’s traditional TV business is nearing a “floor” of households who will never switch to streaming — making the timing right to launch its new streaming ventures.
Josh D’Amaro, chair of Disney Experiences
As the head of Disney’s theme parks, D’Amaro has overseen a remarkable rebound since the pandemic restrictions began to lift in 2021.
After being completely shut down during the Covid-19 outbreak, the division has become the largest source of earnings at Disney, with operating income jumping 16 per cent last year on $32.5bn in revenue. D’Amaro, 53, is credited with using the shutdowns to refresh the parks and introduce new technology such as contactless entry.
“This [parks and experiences] business remains the earnings growth anchor for the company,” Morgan Stanley says. “We are bullish on its global growth potential in the near and long term.”
Iger is bullish, too. He announced a $60bn investment in the parks and experiences division over the next decade — in effect doubling the previous spending plan.
D’Amaro’s division, officially known as Disney Experiences, also includes its cruise lines and a consumer products division that ranges from Mickey Mouse sweatshirts to Buzz Lightyear figures. He was central to the decision-making behind Disney’s recent $1.5bn investment in Epic Games, which will see the two companies create a new version of Fortnite built around the company’s characters.
D’Amaro joined the company in 1998 as an employee at Disneyland and has worked his way up; today he oversees roughly 180,000 people.
Though the parks business is immensely important to Disney’s film business — theme park attractions deepen fans’ connections to characters and franchises — it is viewed as a separate universe from the movie, TV and animation divisions that form the company’s creative core.
This weighed heavily on Chapek, D’Amaro’s predecessor as parks chief, whose brief, stormy tenure as CEO was marked by tensions with talent and executives on the creative side of Disney.
But inside the company, D’Amaro is seen as a more natural communicator than Chapek, who some dismissively labelled “a parks guy”. D’Amaro has also worked with film executives including Marvel Studios head Feige as the parks have developed attractions around their characters.
“He’s not just a parks guy,” noted one associate.
