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Disney has named its parks director Josh D’Amara to succeed Bob Iger as CEO of the entertainment giant.
D’Amaro will become the ninth CEO in the company’s more than 100-year history. He has overseen the company’s theme parks, cruises and resorts since 2020. The so-called experiences division has been a significant moneymaker for Disney, with $36 billion in annual revenue in fiscal 2025 and 185,000 employees worldwide.
The 54-year-old takes on a time when Disney is full of box office hits like Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ashes and its streaming business is strong. But Disney and other legacy studios are stumbling through uncertain times for Hollywood. The rise of generative artificial intelligence, the consolidation of streaming and production giants, and perceived US government interference in the operations of entertainment companies have thrown the industry into disarray.
The decision on Disney’s next CEO comes nearly four years after the company’s decision to replace Iger backfired, forcing him to return to work.
Just two years after stepping down as CEO, Iger returned in 2022 after a period of conflict, missteps and weakening financial results under his handpicked successor, Bob Chapek.
This time around, Disney was looking hard for its next CEO. The company established a succession planning committee in 2023, but the search began in earnest in 2024 when it hired Gorman, who previously served as Morgan Stanley’s executive chairman, to lead the effort. That still gave him plenty of opportunity to vet candidates, as Iger agreed to a contract extension.
Disney said Iger will continue to serve as a senior adviser and board member until his retirement from the company at the end of the year.
Merger, tampering and money
The change also comes amid a period of turmoil and scrutiny over the company. Iger, who he once considered running for the US presidency against Donald Trumpsaw his company featured in the headlines late last year. As the parent company of ABC, Disney has been widely criticized deciding to withdraw Jimmy Kimmel Live! after host Kimmel claimed on air that the accused shooter of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk — who was killed in September 2025 — was a member of the “MAGA gang.”
Kimmel’s comments drew the ire of FCC chief Brendan Carr, as well as station owners Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcast Group. The two companies – which together control about a quarter of ABC’s United States affiliates – decided to stop airing the show on their respective channels, before Disney summarily pulled the plug that from the air.
The standoff has raised serious questions about whether the Trump administration has positioned itself to influence entertainment companies. Kimmel’s on-air comments, which were directed at the “MAGA gang,” were widely seen as critical of Republicans.
US President Donald Trump welcomed ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, igniting a debate over free speech and whether the White House is using its power to silence critics.
Both then and now, Nexstar was in the process of acquiring the media company Tegna. That merger would give a lot of control over the US airwaves, so it would require FCC approval. Sinclair has since appealed to the regulator to approve that jobarguing that the future of the local broadcasting industry depends on it.
Earlier, Paramount came under fire for its decision to to pay $16 million in a settlement with Trump during an interview with his Democratic rival Kamala Harris on the show 60 minutes. Critics slammed the settlement as a veiled attempt to secure approval for the company’s $8 billion US merger with Skydance.
Meanwhile, his perceived closeness to the White House has raised concerns about editorial independence, should it succeed in its hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros.
Disney’s ABC News similarly settled a defamation suit with Trump in late 2024. donating a reported US$15 million to his presidential library. And during the fall of Kimmel, Disney also needed government approval for its own acquisitions, such as its ESPN subsidiary recently inked a mega-deal with the NFL.
The decision to pull Kimmel’s show came after Carr said on a podcast that the FCC “can do this the easy way or the hard way,” in terms of how the commission will handle the situation. Trump suggested that the TV networks covering him negatively licenses could be revokedwhile also announcing on the Internet what move to take Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air was “great news for America”.
Disney says it will bring back Jimmy Kimmel Live! after the late-night talk show was canceled last week over host Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks about the reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder.
Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner called those threats “aggressive but hollow”. Still, the fallout — mostly aimed at Disney’s perceived Trump spill — was swift. Kimmelovi kolege voditelji talk showa, kao i druge osobe iz industrije, osudili su taj potez, ponekad u svojim emisijama.
Comedian John Oliver took a monologue directly to Iger on his own show, saying that the “cowards” who bowed to Trump’s will will be remembered negatively in history. Musician Sarah McLachlan subsequently canceled her appearance at the premiere of her Disney+-hosted documentary Lilith Fair: Building the Mysteries “in support of freedom of speech”. When Kimmel was brought back on the air, she performed in the opening episode.
And — with protests and numerous calls to a boycott against Disney from the public — a group of shareholders later sent a letter requesting materials related to Iger’s decision to suspend Kimmel’s show.
In that letter, they claimed the company’s stock plummeted “on fears of brand damage and concerns that Disney was complicit in succumbing to government overreach and media censorship.”
External, internal candidates
While external candidates for Iger’s replacement were being considered, Disney was expected to look internally for the next CEO. The advantage would be that Iger was already a mentor to Disney executives and that they would have extensive contact with the company’s 15 board members, including Iger himself.
Disney is unique in that its top executive must oversee a sprawling entertainment company with subsidiaries reaching out in every direction while also serving as an unusually public figure.
D’Amaro and Disney Entertainment co-chairman Dana Walden quickly emerged as front-runners for the top job.
D’Amaro, who has been with Disney since 1998, leads Disney’s multi-year investment of $60 billion in its cruise ships, resorts and theme parks. He also oversees Walt Disney Imagineering, which designs and develops the company’s theme parks, resorts, cruise ships and immersive experiences around the world. D’Amaro led Disney’s licensing business, which includes a partnership with Epic Games.
Meanwhile, Walden, in her most recent role as co-president of Disney Entertainment, helped oversee Disney’s streaming business, along with its entertainment media, news and content divisions. She joined Disney in 2019. Prior to that, she spent 25 years at 21st Century Fox and was CEO of Fox Television Group.
Walden will now take on the newly created role of Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Co. She will answer to D’Amar.
There has been speculation that Disney could go the route of appointing co-CEOs, a move that has become increasingly popular among companies including Oracle and Spotify.
D’Amar and Walden’s appointments are effective March 18.
