In the multimillion-dollar proxy clash between Disney and activists led by Nelson Peltz, the biggest battle has been over the process of finding a successor to Bob Iger, the CEO who has run the entertainment empire for most of the past 18 years.
Iger defeated Peltz definitively earlier this month. But with the proxy battle over, the question of who will take over as his successor has risen to the top of investors' agendas.
While activists have been pouring scorn on Disney's succession plans, board members said last month that they were reviewing “internal and external candidates with the assistance of a prestigious national search firm.”
Four people have emerged as potential internal candidates: Josh D'Amaro, who runs Disney's theme parks; Alan Bergman, co-president of Disney Entertainment; Jimmy Pitaro, President of Sports, ESPN; and Dana Walden, co-president of Disney Entertainment.
Iger's contract expires in 2026, so any internal audit will be long-term, and it will be difficult for investors to determine how it will progress. But it will likely be closely watched, given Disney's unhappy track record in succession planning.
Iger had first intended to retire by 2015, but extended his contract several times before stepping down in 2020. His replacement, Bob Chapek, lasted only 33 months, after which Iger returned.
“Succession is critical to Disney, and one of Iger’s most important tasks will be to find his replacement,” said Chris Rosbach, a Disney shareholder and managing partner at private investment firm J Stern & Co. “We would like to see a clear process and a deep bench of management talent.”
David Larcker, director of the Corporate Governance Research Initiative at Stanford University, warned that “baking-offs” among internal candidates can be risky, as Disney demonstrated in a previous succession plan that led to the departure of top executives.
“It makes it a political process, where people align internally with different candidates,” Larcker said. “From the board’s perspective, they don’t want this to be a spectacle.”
Given Iger's previous contract extensions, some openly wonder if he will leave in 2026. But Rosbach believes he will.
“We expect Iger to finish his term in 2026, although the exact way he does so will depend on who his successor is,” he added.
Since his return in late 2022, Iger's job has been to cut costs, fend off activists and fix a long list of problems. Some of the toughest challenges have been handed to the four people considered best placed to succeed him. How they perform may determine who takes the throne in the Magic Kingdom.
Dana Walden, co-president of Disney Entertainment
At Disney, where many executives have worked for decades, Walden is a relative newcomer.
Walden, 59, arrived in 2019 following Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox, where she had been CEO of the company's television group. She comes with deep connections in Hollywood, including successful showrunners like Ryan Murphy (Glee) and Elizabeth Meriwether (New Girl). She has a reputation for spotting talent.
If she is appointed CEO, she will be the first woman to run Disney.
During her 25 years at Fox, the studios she oversaw collected 184 Emmy Awards — and she led the Fox Broadcast Group from fourth place to first place during her four years at the helm.
At Disney, she oversees a portfolio of TV businesses including ABC, ABC News, Disney Television Studios, FX and National Geographic — all of which are in decline thanks to viewers dropping out, abandoning cable subscriptions and the rise of streaming.
To deal with this problem, Walden – who is also in charge of the streaming business with co-president Alan Bergman – wants to make every new show a live show. This means that shows that run on traditional TV networks will also feed into Disney's streaming services, helping to meet the insatiable demand for new content on the Hulu and Disney+ platforms. In theory, this should also reduce “churn” or cancellation of the broadcast.
That model is the hit ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary, which also appears on Hulu — reaching a wider audience.
Walden is also credited with revitalizing children's programming at Disney by backing shows like Percy Jackson & The Olympians — and for bringing The Kardashians to Hulu, where it has become a huge hit for the streamer.
Alan Bergman, co-president of Disney Entertainment
Bergman is a rare creature in Hollywood: a studio head who seems to avoid the spotlight.
But despite his shyness from the spotlight, Bergman, 58, has significant influence in Hollywood thanks to his oversight of Disney's film studios — a group that includes Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Searchlight, 20th Century and the classic Disney studios.
Since becoming head of the studios in 2005, he has overseen remarkable success: Disney has produced four films that have grossed more than $2 billion at the box office and another 22 films that have topped $1 billion.
However, recently, Bergmann's division has attracted attention for a number of disappointments, prompting Iger to announce that the company will be shrinking its slate of releases in order to refocus on quality.
The lackluster box office performance recently became one of Peltz's talking points in his failed bid for a seat on the Disney 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 the full shift to take some time.
Bergman's brief also includes Disney's streaming business, a responsibility he shares with Walden. The pair are overseeing an aggressive push for streaming profitability, which the company expects to reach later this year. Ending streaming losses is a top priority for Iger.
Since Bergman joined Disney in 1996, he has developed a reputation as an astute businessman, having served as the studio's CFO. It has reportedly earned the respect of various studio heads, including Marvel's Kevin Feige and Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy — both of whom are recalibrating after greatly extending their feed to streaming service Disney+ during early paying subscribers.
A return to a hit-making model would be a boon to Bergman's standing.
Jimmy Pitaro, President, ESPN
Pitaro began his career during the dot-com boom of the 1990s and spent a long stint at Yahoo before joining Disney's interactive division in 2010. As president of sports network ESPN, he will need to rely heavily on his digital media experience as he transforms the market. The cable TV giant is switching to a full streaming service next year.
ESPN, a leading cable sports network, has been Disney's main growth engine for decades — attracting advertising as well as hefty carriage fees from cable providers. With cable subscribers depleting in 2018, Pitaro launched ESPN+, an online service that offers documentaries and other sports content not shown on the TV channel.
Pitaro is now preparing to launch ESPN as a “flagship” streaming service in August 2025 that will carry programming shown on network television as well as gaming, shopping and other interactive content. There is a lot riding on it at all. Iger recently said he wants it to become a “preeminent digital sports platform.”
Before the big move, ESPN is also launching a sports streaming joint venture with Fox and Warner Bros. this fall. Iger described the new service, which targets young people who have never subscribed to cable, as “an important moment for Disney.”
Investors are concerned that ESPN will struggle to achieve enough revenue growth to keep up with the rising costs of sports rights as it transitions to streaming, according to Wells Fargo analysts. But they also note that ESPN's traditional TV business is approaching the “floor” of households that will never switch to streaming — making the timing good to launch new streaming ventures.
Josh D'Amaro, president of Disney Experiences
As head of Disney's theme parks, D'Amaro has overseen a remarkable recovery since pandemic restrictions began to lift in 2021.
After shutting down completely during the Covid-19 outbreak, the division has become Disney's biggest profit generator, with operating income jumping 16 percent last year on revenue of $32.5 billion. D'Amaro, 53, is credited with using the closures to modernize the parks and introduce new technology such as contactless entry.
“this [parks and experiences] “Business remains the anchor of the company's earnings growth,” says Morgan Stanley. “We are optimistic about the global growth potential in the near and long term.”
Iger is also optimistic. He announced a $60 billion investment in the parks and experiences division over the next decade — effectively doubling the previous spending plan.
The D'Amaro division, formally known as Disney Experiences, also includes cruise lines and a consumer products division that ranges from Mickey Mouse T-shirts to Buzz Lightyear characters. He was pivotal in the decision-making process behind Disney's recent $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games, which will see the two companies create a new version of Fortnite based on the company's characters.
D'Amaro joined the company in 1998 as a Disneyland employee and worked his way up. Today, he supervises nearly 180,000 people.
Although the theme park business is extremely important to Disney's film business — theme park attractions deepen fans' connections to characters and franchises — it is viewed as a world apart from the film, television, and animation divisions that make up the creative core of the company.
This hit hard on Chapek, D'Amaro's predecessor as parks president, whose short and 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, whom some disparagingly described as a “garden man.” D'Amaro also worked with film executives including Marvel Studios president Feige as the parks developed attractions around their characters.
“He's not just a garden guy,” one colleague noted.
