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After a three-year search, Disney's board and its chairman James Gorman have named a CEO successor. Josh D'Amaro will be promoted from being parks chief to succeed Bob Iger in March of this year. And Mr. Gorman joins us now. Good morning, Mr. Gorman. Thank you for your time. I mean, let's start with the simple question: Why Josh D'Amaro?
Well, it's Josh D'Amaro, but good morning, Ed. Listen, he's a fantastic executive. He's strategic. He's run a huge operations business, one which Disney is now investing $60 billion of capital into. He has great creative instincts. He has what Bob Iger calls exceptional taste. He's a leader who's operated all over the globe, including the recent expansion that's going to happen in the UAE, which he did with Bob. He's the perfect person for this time. So Josh is just a standout executive. We looked all over the world, as you could imagine. We wanted to do this right. We wanted to make sure that whoever got the job beat all comers, and he beat all comers. So we're thrilled.
Mr. Gorman, what mandatory goals, performance targets did you set Mr. D'Amaro over the term of his contract?
Well, we haven't set goals in terms of his contract. He hasn't started. He'll be taking over as CEO at the annual meeting, which is March 18. Bob will be working with him through 2026, guiding and mentoring and helping further develop him. Obviously, he laid out a vision for the board in the various discussions we had, which we had numerous ones. We really got to know Josh and all the other top executives: Dana Walden, Alan Bergman, Jimmy Pitaro, just a tremendous group of four executives we had to consider in this process. And you know, over time, we'll work with him as he settles into the job to lay out what the right strategic moves will be and how we're going to measure ourselves against those. So I'm highly confident in Josh and the team working with him.
Mr. Gorman, there was reporting that Mr. Iger confided in those close to him that he wanted to leave Disney before the end of his contracted term. To what extent did that push the board to move up its succession timeline?
Yeah, I think firstly, let's just talk about Bob. I mean, he's had effectively two careers at Disney. The first was an amazing 15-year run where he did deals that, you know, nobody else on the planet could have done. Frankly, he worked with Steve Jobs, with George Lucas, with Rupert Murdoch to buy a bunch of studios, which we now oversee. Seven studios, which Alan Bergman has been overseeing, by the way, and under Alan's leadership and working with Dana, has produced over $6 billion in movies in the last two years. But Bob did a phenomenal job when the company got in trouble, and it was before I joined the board. They invited Bob to come back, and really there were two mandates for him. One was to get us through the very difficult post-COVID period and the changes taking place in the linear space with what was going on in streaming and now what is going on in AI. He did that. He really got the company fit for purpose. The second was to make sure, if we were to go internal, that the lead executives, and we had four of them to consider, would be ready for prime time if and when we went in that direction. We ultimately did. So Bob came to us a little while ago and said they're ready. I mean, Josh is ready. He's ready to take over. If the board's will is to move on this, I want to step aside and I want to work with Josh as a senior adviser, stay on the board through the end of the year. It's not about the length of the contract that he was under. It's about his role as CEO and then as mentor for the next CEO. So hats off to Bob. It was very selfless, and frankly, it's what's great for the company.
Did you consider Bob Iger continuing on in a co-chairman capacity or a chairman emeritus type role? I appreciate that there is an advisor agreement here, but does that have a definitive end?
Yeah. Bob will stay as an employee advisor and board member until the end of 2026, and then he'll step off the board. He won't be an employee. He'll continue to consult to the company, consistent with what former executives do. I'm doing that at my former institution, Morgan Stanley. But no, we were not, you know, Bob was not interested in remaining as a chair or co-chair. We needed a completely clean start here, which is what we're having. He'll be there to support and mentor, and we have the right structure for the future. So we're thrilled. And you know, you look at what's going on now that we've appointed Dana also as president and a new role, chief creative officer. That's to ensure that the leadership team at the heart of this company is creativity and storytelling. And it's to ensure the leadership team brings their absolute best every day, leveraging our IP, telling stories across all of our properties, whether it's cruises or parks, our TV, our ESPN platform, and obviously the studios. So we're really set. We're set for the next decade. I'm very excited about it.
Mr. Gorman, ultimately, you went with Josh D'Amaro for the CEO role and promoting Dana Walden to the CCO-president hybrid role. How conscious were you of keeping her, you know, giving her that title to ensure she stays at Disney long term?
