Disney vows to resolve Iger succession in 2026 as Gorman becomes board chair

[Simone Del Rosario]

Disney is inching closer to its Bob Iger-less future, although it might be crawling a little slower than previously expected. Now the House of Mouse says it will hire its new CEO in “early 2026.”

Disney announced Monday, James Gorman will take over as Chairman of the Board at the start of 2025 after he officially steps down from his Executive Chairman role at Morgan Stanley at the end of this year.

Gorman was tapped to head Disney board’s Succession Planning Committee back in August. He brings unique experience to that role, having overseen the process when Ted Pick succeeded him as Morgan Stanley CEO.

There’s a ton of talk about potential internal Disney candidates to take over for Iger.

The short list includes Dana Walden, the co-chair of Disney Entertainment, Alan Bergman, Walden’s co-chair, Josh D’Amaro, who is head of Disney Experiences, aka theme parks and video games, and Jimmy Pitaro, who runs ESPN.

And there could be something to promoting from within, even if it didn’t work out for Disney the last time Iger left.

GAUTAM MUKUNDA:

Most great, long-lived, great companies operate this way, in general. Well, the business, the academic research on sort of companies that live for a long time is they hire almost exclusively internally, because hiring external people is a risk, right? Whenever you do it, you’re taking a big risk because you don’t know them as well as you might otherwise.

Simone Del Rosario:

But the Succession Planning Committee says it will still “review internal candidates and external candidates.”

The last attempt to replace Iger internally failed. Iger served as CEO of Walt Disney from 2005 to 2020. He hand-picked Bob Chapek to be his successor. Chapek had spent nearly three decades with the company, working his way up from the VHS division to Head of Parks before getting the CEO nod. But when Chapek took the reins, Iger’s succession plan allowed him to stay on as executive chairman for nearly two years. During that time, Iger was accused of undermining Chapek at every turn.

After a series of missteps and weak performance, Chapek was fired in 2022. Iger came back to helm the company and even fought off a proxy war this year with activist investor Nelson Peltz. Peltz had taken issue with the company’s succession handling and its lackluster streaming performance.

Iger’s latest contract now runs through the end of 2026 and he’s made clear this is the end of the road.

Andrew Ross Sorkin: Do you think in two years you really will step down.
Bob Iger: Given the list of things I have to do. Yeah, I’m definitely going to.
Bob Iger: We’re attacking each one of them. I’m confident we will do so successfully.

Simone Del Rosario:

While the process might feel like it’s taking longer than the four seasons of the hit HBO show, “Succession,” James Gorman says, “This timing reflects the progress the Succession Planning Committee and the Board are making, and will allow ample time for a successful transition before the conclusion of Bob Iger’s contract…”

Gorman is taking over the board chair role from Mark Parker, who will leave the board entirely to focus on Nike. Parker also serves as Executive Chairman at Nike, which has its own troubles and recently faced a CEO shakeup. Parker served as President and CEO of Nike from 2006 to 2020. The Disney board had even asked him to consider being interim CEO in 2022, but he declined, citing his Nike workload.

The Disney succession committee “take 2” will include Parker through the rest of the year, along with GM CEO Mary Barra and LuLuLemon CEO Calvin McDonald.

For more on what’s going on over at Nike, search for this story titled, “After a lot of mistakes, this is the only direction Nike can take,” at SAN.com or the Straight Arrow News app.