We now return to ‘Days of Disney C-Suite Lives,” America’s #1 soap opera among the key business and Hollywood demos. The company has publicly stated it will name current CEO Bob Iger’s successor in early 2026…and it’s now early 2026! This post discusses the latest dramatic developments in the horse race and offers the highly-coveted DTB endorsement.
By most accounts, there are two internal candidates who stand out as the most likely contenders: Entertainment Co-Chair Dana Walden and Experiences Chair Josh D’Amaro. Walden has decades of Hollywood expertise, rising to President of Entertainment at Fox in 1999, then Co-CEO of the Fox Television Group, overseeing the broadcast network and studios. She came over to Disney as part of the acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019.
Josh D’Amaro joined Disney in 1998 at Disneyland Resort. Over his decades-long career since, he has held leadership roles across the company, both in the U.S. and internationally across finance, business strategy, marketing, creative development and operations. Pre-pandemic, he ascended the ranks from President of Disneyland Resort to President of Walt Disney World Resort, before quickly becoming head of the Parks Division when its previous leader, Bob Chapek, was named Disney CEO in 2020.
As you can see from the above, there’s very little overlap in the experiences and skill-sets of D’Amaro and Walden. He’s never worked in Hollywood, and she’s never worked in theme parks. At least at high levels. These gaps in product knowledge and expertise mean that either one would necessarily be a fish out of water when it comes to a significant portion of Disney’s biggest divisions. The company has attempted to remedy this by immersing all candidates in business units with which they’re unfamiliar, but there has been no role swaps to further that process.
One remedy to this that is seemingly gaining traction is the idea of Walden and D’Amaro serving as co-CEOs. That the Disney board could opt to select both to jointly replace Iger. There’s precedent for this, and it might make sense in light of the forgoing.
It’s a strategy rival Netflix has effectively utilized since 2020, when Reed Hastings named Ted Sarandos his co-CEO. Three years later, Hastings relinquished that post and moved on to become the company’s executive chairman, elevating Greg Peters into his spot as co-CEO.
Netflix’s success has contributed to a recent co-CEO wave. Spotify named Alex Norstrom and Gustav Soderstrom as co-CEOs; Oracle named Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia; and Comcast president Mike Cavanagh joined CEO Brian Roberts in the chief role. If Disney’s biggest rival is doing it, who knows, it might happen.
Multiple media reports have confirmed that Iger is likewise curious about the concept, and called Sarandos to inquire about Netflix’s co-CEO model. Up until now, this call coupled with ample speculation, has been the basis of the growing belief that Disney could use the co-CEO model.
The latest development is that respected and well-connected industry insider Matthew Belloni of Puck News, who among other things heard rumblings of Disneyland Abu Dhabi days before its announcement, has released his list of “20 Surefire, 100 Percent Probable Hollywood Predictions for 2026.” The title is tongue-in-cheek; obviously predictions are exactly that–but they’re backed up by conversations and connections in Hollywood and beyond.
Two of these predictions concern succession at Disney, with the first coming with an assist from Kim Masters, Editor-at-Large of The Hollywood Reporter, who also authored The Keys to the Kingdom: The Rise of Michael Eisner. Masters and Belloni “go out on a limb and say that Josh D’Amaro and Dana Walden will be co-C.E.O.s of The Walt Disney Co.”
They reason that the Disney board might hesitate to give D’Amaro the keys on his own after the Bob Chapek debacle, even though “he presents much more like an Iger than a Chapek.” They further, correctly point out that “content is king for Disney,” and having Dana serve as co-CEO would make that clear, as would giving her 51 percent decision-making power over the film, TV, and digital units.
D’Amaro would have similar decision-making authority over parks & resorts, consumer products, gaming, and everything else under the Experiences umbrella. The rationale for this arrangement is exactly what we discussed above–familiarity, or lack thereof, with the disparate business units.
Masters theorizes that Iger could familiarize Josh with the Hollywood creatives during the next year he’s still around. The question, in her mind, is whether board chair James Gorman “has any desire to be deferential to Iger on his way out.”
The Puck piece also discusses how Iger “clearly favored” Walden at one point, and she could make the case for the co-CEO arrangement based on her past (and present?) partnership work. If the board wanted to do that–or elevate D’Amaro to CEO and name Walden head of content–it has the advantage that neither has any particular place to go, so they would likely accept the verdict. Masters concludes that she thinks the co-CEO arrangement might be where the Disney board is headed.
Belloni takes this one step further, asserting that board chair James Gorman could pull a page from his days leading Morgan Stanley, when there was a three-way bake-off to replace him as CEO. Instead of the losers walking to c-suite positions elsewhere, Morgan Stanley offered them fancy job titles and threw a lot of money at them in the form of one-time bonuses.
He expects Gorman to make a similar move at Disney. If the board selects D’Amaro as CEO, Walden will “likely get a lofty title, oversight of all content, and a big financial incentive to stay.” That, combined with her good working relationship with D’Amaro (Belloni shares that Dana and Josh do have a good rapport) suggests she’ll stay.
It’s also a practical reality. With rival studios gobbling up one another amidst industry contraction, the only safe and stable options in Hollywood are pretty much Disney or Netflix. It’s all uncertainty elsewhere. Belloni underscores this, pointing to the “fact that few comparable jobs even exist in Hollywood these days, much less ones that are available” to Walden as another reason she’ll stay. And at 61 years old, Walden likely isn’t retiring anytime soon.
Prior to this, a year-end poll taken by Bloomberg asked over 700 industry experts big questions about the future of entertainment companies. High on those list of hot questions, right up there with who’d buy Warner Bros. (Netflix), was “who will be the CEO of Disney in 2027?”
D’Amaro was the winner with roughly 30%, or 212 of the votes. Walden was in second-place with 22.5%, or 159 votes. Interestingly and concerningly, Bob Iger was in third place with 18%, or 126 votes. This does not mean that Disney is going to find a second man named “Bob Iger” to replace Bob Iger, the first. It means the OG Bob Iger is sticking around yet again.
The fourth-place pick was Co-CEOs at 15.3%, followed by an outsider at 8.8%, or another dark-horse Disney candidate at 5.5%. Outsider could mean Kevin Mayer or Tom Staggs. Or, I guess, Bob Chapek 2.0. The last time this poll was taken, Dana Walden was the winner.
One of the things it’s important to emphasize with all of this Disney CEO horse race drama is that it involves a lot of industry gossip. It’s like a bad game of telephone, and becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. At least, in terms when it concerns talk of front-runners, not who will actually be named.
Which is to say that a lot of this is circular. Someone writes in the Hollywood trades that they’ve heard D’Amaro is moving into the front-runner position, but what they really mean is that they’ve seen D’Amaro make more public appearances with Iger, and are surmising something from that…but want to sound more connected than they are. Then someone else sees that piece, and reports it as their own. Suddenly, there are two sources “hearing” that the winds have changed. And so on and so forth.
This is not the case with Belloni and Masters, just to be clear. Their industry connections are well-established and their track records proven. But the 700 so-called industry experts surveyed by Bloomberg? Not a chance. They’re just synthesizing what they’ve read in the trades, which may or may not have any basis in reality. There are maybe two-dozen people in the world who know which way the Disney board is leaning with Iger’s successor. Definitely not 700, and probably not even 7 who report on this stuff.
At the risk of stating the obvious, I am not 7 of those people. I do hear a lot of chatter from within the company about who they expect to be the next CEO, though. The clear consensus is D’Amaro.
However, every single one of these people is in the Experiences division, so they’re biased; and most are probably not in a position to know. They’re doing the same thing as Bloomberg’s 700 industry experts–repeating what they’ve read or heard from colleagues. Like I said, it’s a bad game of telephone.
I’m skeptical of any rumors, especially after being blindsided on a blustery February 2020 day with the news of Bob Chapek’s ascension to the throne. There was also a lot of, ahem, chatter about Chapek prior to that time among parks people–long before his disastrous reign as top dog–and none of it was “this guy’s got the chops to be CEO.” Quite literally, the opposite.
In any case, add these to the growing pile of reports from the last year suggesting that D’Amaro and Walden are the leading candidates, with the former as front-runner.
Again, I know absolutely nothing and I would’ve guessed that D’Amaro would be front-runner simply by virtue of his position, public appearances, and other variables. When it comes to appearances, D’Amaro has made a lot of those over the last 6 months that would seem to signal he’s CEO in waiting.
More importantly, business is booming for the Experiences division. It became the company’s primary profit engine in 2022, replacing the declining cable TV business. Experiences now represents over 70% of Disney’s overall operating income, up from 41% in 2019 and 34.5% in 2018.
Experiences is Disney’s only core business to have grown measurably since 2020. For the last fiscal year, profit in the division rose to $10 billion, up 8% from the prior year. That’s a third more than Disney’s TV, film, streaming and sports segments combined. The past few years have been a struggle for those businesses; theme parks are keeping Disney afloat.
Because of the segment’s success under D’Amaro’s leadership, Experiences is seeing $60 billion of investment over the next decade. It’s our expectation that the actual number ends up being higher, and it also doesn’t account for projects/partnerships that will be revenue generators without investment, like Disneyland Abu Dhabi.
Given all that, it seems only logical that Disney’s next CEO would come from its most successful division, and be the one person who has a fairly spotless record during that timeframe.
I won’t pretend to know much about Dana Walden. She seems to be reasonably well-liked within Hollywood and is good at what she does. However, my knowledge of her is entirely superficial.
Walden makes sense given the paramount importance of content to Disney. This has likely been amplified by Chapek’s disastrous handling of the Hollywood side of the business, from alienating talent to approving a pipeline of shows and films that managed the impressive feat of being both expensive and awful. I would’ve guessed that greenlighting a bunch of sequels and mediocre live action remakes would be easy stuff that anyone could get right. Apparently not.
Beyond her business acumen and relationships with Hollywood talent, the advantage Walden has is that she’d be historic–Disney’s first female CEO. That’s a double-edged sword, though; she’d probably be viewed as the more political pick, and her name has been involved with cleaning up high-profile problems at Disney. The board might be reluctant to name her as CEO between now and November 2028, and this decision is coming in early 2026.
My hope is that Josh D’Amaro is named Disney’s next CEO.
Along with that, I hope Walden is kept on board as head of content or some other prestigious title. But I think the co-CEO arrangement is a recipe for in-fighting and palace intrigue, so I’d prefer if Disney avoids that. There should be a clear top boss, even if it’s a near co-equals dynamic.
The circumstances were unique at Netflix, and Disney has had way too much drama over the last…well, since the Eisner days. Let Walden be in charge of the Hollywood stuff so Josh isn’t distracted by the less important side of the business and can focus on what really matters in life: theme parks.
It’s odd to me that the trades keep pointing to Netflix as the model for Disney, when the real blueprint for what might work best is Disney itself. Iger should be calling former CEO Michael Eisner, not Reed Hastings. As longtime fans might recall, the ‘Disney Decade’ of the 1990s was powered by the two-man team of Eisner and Frank Wells.
Wells served as President and Chief Operating Officer, while Eisner was Chairman and CEO. They enjoyed tremendous success up until Wells’ death in 1994. But you already know this if you’ve read DisneyWar. And if you haven’t read DisneyWar, well, read DisneyWar!
Disney’s board almost certainly isn’t going for that exact arrangement again, but something along these lines could be workable. So long as Josh D’Amaro is CEO.
This is at least partially a matter of expediency and to ensure continuity of projects. All it takes is a regime change to derail projects that aren’t sufficiently far along in construction. New leaders love to make their mark on theme park projects, in ways both good and bad.
New CEOs favor their own pet properties, and there’s zero reason to believe Walden has any affinity towards the theme parks. To the contrary, she might believe it’s time for Disney to once again double-down on streaming, and take on Netflix head-to-head. That would be absolutely catastrophic for the parks.
Suffice to say, some fans who oppose D’Amaro being named CEO for whatever reason have a failure of imagination when it comes to the downside risk in the unknown. My (totally fake) vote for D’Amaro is not necessarily an endorsement of his leadership in the last ~6 years; it’s a vote for continued investment of $60 billion or more in the Parks & Resorts.
There may be little things over which he and Iger disagreed, but I cannot see him cancelling an entire land or altering the course of a project entirely. D’Amaro is the consistency and continuity CEO candidate. Anyone else could be an agent of change and chaos.
If you’d like to see some change and chaos, maybe Walden is your pick. But just remember that the grass is always greener. When you’re advocating for uncertain changes, don’t envision a best-case scenario where everything is to your liking as a guest and fan. Instead consider the counterfactual, where things get measurably worse.
There have been a lot of photos of Josh D’Amaro at Hollywood premieres and other industry events. But have you seen a single photo of Dana Walden at Disneyland? Or even just down the street from Burbank at Imagineering’s offices in Glendale? Have you ever heard her speak fondly of parks or mention her favorite attraction in interviews?
I haven’t the slightest inkling where Dana Walden stands on theme parks. But I can tell you that they’re not exactly beloved in Hollywood. There are a growing number of Disney Adults in Hollywood, sure. There’s also a stereotype that theme parks are frivolity for children and bumpkins. Anaheim might as well be in Florida–as they’re equally unlikely to visit either Orange County.
Meanwhile, making the 657th movie about men flying around in spandex is somehow considered the highest and noblest artform. You might think I’m kidding or that this is hyperbole, but it really isn’t.
Industry people often think Hollywood is the center of the universe, having an outsized opinion of its present-day importance. If even Disneyland, a cultural cornerstone of Southern California, is beneath them, you can imagine their thoughts on the ‘other Disneyland’ out in the swamp, or Euro Disneyland, or the ones in Asia, or the big boats.
Just to reiterate once again, I haven’t the slightest clue where Dana Walden stands on theme parks. So this stereotypical Hollywood industry executive might not describe her at all. Maybe she’s secretly a fan, and visits with her family every weekend! But I’m skeptical of that, and it’s a little concerning that we haven’t heard or seen anything about her and Disney’s biggest division–not even trying to fake it for the cameras.
Ultimately, this is why I’d like to have someone from Parks & Resorts serve as CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Right now, that person would be Josh D’Amaro. I’ve become less bullish on him, personally, because his track record on projects that were started and completed under his tenure is a limited and mixed bag.
Nevertheless, I’d rather have D’Amaro over the realistic alternatives for the simple reason that he’s a “Parks Guy.” Not only that, but I’d like to believe that his hands have been tied by the streaming struggles and everything else, so treading water from 2020 to 2024 was the best case scenario.
I’d like to believe the blame for the EPCOT overhaul debacle and other post-COVID projects lies elsewhere. That the ‘turbocharged’ project slate will go much better. It already does seem like Walt Disney World is turning a corner and is aggressively moving forward with its $17 billion share of those $60 billion in parks projects.
On a positive note, we’ve heard plenty about D’Amaro from past colleagues and Cast Members–and still want to give him the benefit of the doubt based on that. People who have worked with him–and not just frontline Cast Members who have superficial encounters–suggest that he’s the real deal.
That D’Amaro is someone who truly “gets” Walt Disney World and Disneyland, cares about Cast Members and the guest experience, and would advocate for theme parks were he CEO. I’m inclined to believe this.
In his roles as President of Disneyland and Walt Disney World, we saw D’Amaro in the parks constantly–and not just for photo ops or media events with a team of handlers. I’ve spotted him more times than I can count, just walking the parks or interacting with frontline Cast Members.
The bottom line is that I want to see someone come from Experiences. I want that to be Disney’s focus. That’s my obvious personal bias, but it’s also clearly in the company’s best financial interests. It would be nice to have a CEO who came up through the parks and understands their importance to the company’s creative legacy–and not just as the goose(s) that lay golden eggs that they view contemptuously.
Whether that’s Josh D’Amaro, the triumphant return of Tom Staggs, or some mystery third candidate with a parks pedigree, I don’t really care. I’ll take all of them over anyone from Hollywood (Pete Docter and Kevin Feige excepted). Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait much longer, and Disney puts all this gossip to rest with an official announcement in the next 2 months. We’ll keep you posted!
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OUR THOUGHTS
Who do you think will be CEO of the Walt Disney Company on January 1, 2027? Will it be Bob Iger (still), Josh D’Amaro, Dana Walden, Tom Staggs, or none of the above? Who should it be? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!