Walt Disney’s New Challenges
2022.11.22 12:56
Walt Disney’s New Challenges
Budrigannews.com – According to people who have worked with Bob Iger and experts, one of his greatest failures in his first stint as the company’s leader was being asked to name his successor as chief executive.
By acquiring well-known entertainment brands like Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars, which would serve as a beacon for consumers as they navigate a crowded entertainment landscape, Iger is credited with shaping Disney into a modern media company.
However, Iger, 71, was hesitant to relinquish the reins of the organization that gave him “A truly mind-blowing Ride,” as his 2019 self-portrayal is named.Iger delayed his retirement four times during his 15 years as Disney CEO, excluding potential successors.
The succession issue Iger is tasked with assisting with as he returns to the company for a two-year term may have been set up by a delay in passing the baton for one of the most coveted jobs in Hollywood and the departure of talented executives whose ambitions were thwarted. Disney claims that one of his responsibilities is to collaborate with the board to develop a candidate to take over as CEO.
According to Bank of America (NYSE:), “It’s the one black eye Bob Iger has.”Director of Management Jessica Reif EhrlichHe has accomplished a lot and done it well, but finding a successor has not gone well for him.”
Disney watchers see Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products, and Dana Walden, a former Fox television executive who leads Disney’s General Entertainment Content group, as the top internal candidates to succeed Iger.
The publicists for Walden and D’Amaro did not respond to requests for information.
After Bob Chapek, Iger’s chosen successor, was fired in less than three years due to a series of mistakes and poor fourth-quarter results, Iger returns to the business.
Disney’s spokesperson declined to comment.
Iger’s track record is the culmination of a long tradition of Disney succession planning that recalls Cronus eating his offspring from Greek mythology.
According to “Disney War,” an account of chief executive Michael Eisner’s two decades at the company, Jeffrey Katzenberg, who as studio chief revived Disney’s ailing animation unit, left the company in 1994 after unsuccessfully lobbying to be named president.
According to author James Stewart’s account, Eisner instead tapped Michael Ovitz, a Hollywood super-agent.According to court documents, Ovitz received a $130 million severance package after being fired after just 14 months as president.
Iger is credited with stabilizing the company and elevating a group of executives considered to be likely successors. He took over as chairman and chief executive in 2005 following a bitter battle between Eisner and heir Roy E. Disney.
Tom Staggs, the company’s former chief financial officer and parks chairman, was one of those executives. In 2015, he was promoted to chief operating officer.Two people with knowledge of the situation claim that Staggs left the company a little more than a year later after losing Iger’s support.
To give the board time to find a replacement, Iger delayed his retirement until July 2019.He delayed his departure from the Magic Kingdom once more, this time until the end of 2021, as a result of the $71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019.
THE OTHER BOB As Iger’s contract came to an end, a new group of senior executives were thought to be good candidates to take his place.
According to a source familiar with the discussions, Chapek was one of a shortlist of internal candidates competing for Iger’s position.Sources claim that Disney’s longtime head of strategic planning, Kevin
Mayer, who oversaw the successful launch of Disney+, was another top contender.
Chapek was chosen by Disney’s board of directors. In his memoir’s acknowledgements, Iger praised Chapek for “tremendous job” running the company’s consumer products and theme park businesses and “invaluable” role in opening Shanghai Disneyland.
Former employees claim that Mayer was taken aback by the news and left Disney three months later to take a position as chief executive of TikTok.Together with Staggs, he is now co-CEO of Candle Media.
Chapek’s tenure was fraught with difficulties, including a global pandemic that halted film and television production and closed theme parks and cinemas;an unusually public dispute with Scarlett Johansson, star of “Black Widow”;and a dispute between businesses and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over a law that makes it illegal to discuss sexual orientation or gender identity in the classroom.
One high-level change has already occurred as a result of Iger’s return to Disney.Chapek’s long-term delegate, Kareem Daniel, director of Disney Media and Diversion Circulation, will leave the organization in the midst of a rebuilding of the unit, Iger declared Monday.
Kellogg, Inc.Craig Garthwaite, a professor of strategy at the School of Management, stated that, despite Disney’s apparent difficulty in developing succession plans, the company’s primary issue remains Iger’s 2017 announcement of an all-in streaming video strategy.
Disney+’s early success with this strategy has caused the company’s finances to suffer as expenses rise and streaming subscriber growth slows across the industry.
Garthwaite stated, “The problem of any company with a very long-running, successful CEO is that you attribute anything that goes wrong to the next CEO.”Disney’s problem right now is that Disney+ is hard to run because streaming is hard to be in.”
