Inside Bob Iger’s Disney Farewell Tour

Josh D'Amaro and Bob Iger at a Disneyland 70th Anniversary event. Disney

On Wednesday, Bob Iger’s office on Disney‘s Burbank studio lot was cleared out for Josh D’Amaro, who got his formal start as CEO right as the closely-watched annual shareholder meeting began. That Iger’s things were packed up may not seem that unusual, given the carefully choreographed succession moves by the company. But it’s worth remembering that when Bob Chapek was named CEO in 2020, Iger held on to his space given his role as exec chairman. The message this time is clear: It’s a new era.

As part of the turnover, Disney employees were greeted at their offices with buttons featuring a cartoon portrait of Iger, and the words “Thank you, Bob!” One source on the Burbank lot says that the buttons could be spotted on employees (sorry, in Disney-speak “cast members”) all over the campus. A billboard on the side of a studio building featured Tinkerbell waving her wand next to the words “Welcome, Josh!”

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As much as Wednesday marked the beginning of Disney’s next chapter under D’Amaro and president and chief creative officer Dana Walden, it was also a formal sendoff for a CEO that defined Hollywood for the last quarter century.

Disney veterans took to social media to wish him well, with Alan Bergman calling him “a great leader and friend,” Walden calling him a “once-in-a-lifetime mentor and a transformational leader,” marketing chief Asad Ayaz calling him “the best mentor I could have ever asked for” and D’Amaro posting a photo of the building named after their predecessor Michael Eisner. “Thank you for your vision, your courage, your leadership, and your friendship,” D’Amaro wrote.

Iger himself chose to deliver farewell remarks at one of his favorite annual events, timed to coincide with his departure: the shareholder meeting. There was a prerecorded “Thank you, Bob!” video tribute, followed by the comments from Iger himself, which acknowledged the two tenures that will define his legacy.

“I never dreamed I would end up as CEO of The Walt Disney Company, and I certainly never expected to step into the role a second time … but once I did, I was quickly reminded of the tremendous responsibility that being entrusted with something very special bears,” Iger said. “What I couldn’t have fully known then was just how meaningful this journey would become — because of the people, the creativity, and the shared belief in what this company stands for and what we have all accomplished, particularly during this ‘second time around.'”

Because Bob Iger knew his plan from day one, some 21 years ago.

On the 3rd quarter 2005 earnings call for Disney, Iger, then the CEO-elect of the company, told Wall Street analysts that he intended to focus on “three strategic priorities” when he stepped into Michael Eisner’s shoes: “The creation of quality content, the application of technology to distribute our content more effectively and make it even more compelling, and the global expansion of the Company.”

Those three priorities, it turns out, were quite prescient, and his execution, at least in his first turn as CEO, was without peer.

Bob Iger’s first run as CEO could best be described as the “Bob the builder” phase. Iger orchestrated deal after deal in pursuit of those three pillars, filling in perceived gaps in Disney’s ecosystem to get ahead of what he recognized would be a transformative era for media.

And his deals were transformative. Less than a year into the CEO job, he acquired Pixar for $7.4 billion, a few years later he secured Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion, and a few years after that he acquired Lucasfilm for $4 billion. His final deal, the $71 billion Fox megamerger, may have tarnished his dealmaking skills somewhat given the relative bargains of what came before, but it also brought IP like the X-Men and Avatar into the Disney fold, not to mention critical executives like Walden.

Those deals solidify Disney’s content engine, providing ammunition that it leveraged to great effect as the streaming wars kicked into gear.

On the global expansion front, Iger launched Hong Kong Disneyland and Shanghai Disneyland, giving the company scale in China, a market no other entertainment company has been able to crack effectively. When Iger became CEO, the Disney Cruise Line had two ships. When he steps away, it will have eight, with five more on the way, including its first ever ship based in Asia, the Disney Adventure.

In fact, in one of his only public appearances as incoming CEO, D’Amaro toured the Adventure with Iger and the ship’s ceremonial godparent, Robert Downey Jr. The actor has been one of the biggest movie stars of Iger’s tenure leading the company, and potentially one of the biggest stars of D’Amaro’s run, with Avengers: Doomsday on the horizon.

But it may be the embrace of technology that secured Iger’s status among the top CEO ranks. He pushed Disney aggressively and early into streaming, and while that move was not without its faults (more on that below), it is a big reason why Disney is now safely ensconced with Netflix at the top of the heap, as NBCUniversal, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox continue to figure out their path to scale. He acquired BAMTech from Major League Baseball, bringing in outside experts in live streaming to help the company scale up quickly. And he inked landmark deals with Epic Games and OpenAI to bring Disney’s characters to other platforms, aware that Hollywood’s grasp on distribution had effectively faded away.

But it wasn’t always so smooth.

Bob Chapek and Bob Iger speak Walt Disney World Resort on September 30, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Gerardo Mora/Getty Images

The last time Iger stepped away from the CEO role, it was abrupt and surprising, and the timing, a month or so before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered all of Disney’s parks and most of its entertainment productions, didn’t help.

His successor, Chapek, leaned into streaming, pouring resources into producing Marvel, Star Wars and Pixar fare for Disney+. In the middle of pandemic, there was a streaming landgrab, and securing subscribers was the end goal.

But that subscriber landgrab came at the expense of Disney’s creative engines, which depleted themselves as theatrical releases, the heart of Walt Disney’s corporate flywheel, were pushed aside for streaming debuts. Chapek lost the support of Disney employees, as Iger himself noted Wednesday.

“When I returned in 2022, people had lost confidence in the company they worked for,” he said.

His return to the company in Nov. 2022, less than a year after stepping down as executive chairman, marked a very different chapter. This time he wasn’t Bob the builder, he was Bob the stabilizer, and that was reflected in the four strategic pillars he outlined in Nov. 2023, a year after his return: “Elevating the quality and economic output of the film studios; Achieving significant, sustained profitability in streaming; Positioning ESPN as the ultimate digital destination for sports fans; and Driving historic growth across Disney Experiences.”

The studios needed a creative rejuvenation, the streaming business needed to become viable as a business, ESPN needed to chart its path forward, and Disney experiences, the thing they do better than everyone else, needed even more investment.

But the failed succession stuck with him, and became a focal point of his second term.

Ultimately, Iger sought to deliver on those promises, through his $60 billion experiences investment, the ESPN standalone product, a profitable streaming business and a studio that is once again top of the heap. Now, backed by Disney chairman James Gorman, who led the CEO search process, he gets a second chance at succession, betting that things will go smoother this time around.

“The most important thing boards do is figure out the CEO transition,” Gorman told The Hollywood Reporter after D’Amaro was selected. “I’ve sat in Bob’s committee meetings a couple times, he’s had me to lunch with the team. There’s great respect that not every team has, and I give credit to Bob for building that respect and collegiality in the team.”

Ultimately, Gorman and the board selected D’Amaro, who told ABC News that “I got a little choked up when they let me know” that he was the pick. But they also kept Walden.

“If you’re so fortunate to have world class executives, you always want to keep them, for the good of the company, for the good of the CEO, for everything,” Gorman said.

And so the Bob Iger era ends, and the D’Amaro and Walden era begins.

Disney’s James Gorman, Josh D’Amaro, Dana Walden and Bob Iger Disney

“This next chapter will be driven by staying focused on World Class creativity enhanced by technology, bringing unforgettable stories to audiences wherever they are, while we are in a league of our own,” D’Amaro told shareholders Wednesday. “That doesn’t mean things have always been easy, especially with the pace of change that we’re all facing today. When Bob returned to the company a few years ago, his goal was to fortify our business and lay the groundwork for long term growth by reigniting creativity and improving performance at our studios, building a robust and profitable streaming business, transforming ESPN for a digital future, and turbo charging our parks and experiences. We’ve accomplished all of those things, and we’re operating from a place of strength with ample opportunity for growth.”

D’Amaro has inherited that foundation, but he will need to build on it.

Multiple sources close to D’Amaro suggested that his own love of technology, combined with a genuine respect for the company’s creativity, will play a major role in his vision for Disney. That has been reflected in one of the first changes: Bringing Disney’s games business under Walden’s purview, with a goal of harmonizing the studios, streaming and interactivity.

D’Amaro is fond of sharing Walt Disney’s 1957 graphic, which situates the Disney studio at the center of a wheel, and all the other businesses, from Disneyland and book publishing to music and toys surrounding it.

One source says that D’Amaro wants to modernize that flywheel to represent what Disney stands for today.

“Very early on, Walt was thinking beyond the screen, from movies, music and television to merchandise, publishing and theme parks,” D’Amaro said Wednesday, referencing the 1957 chart. “That vision has grown to encompass sports, news, games, streaming, cruise ships, hotels and so much more, all of our businesses reinforce and amplify one another.”

As for Iger, it seems increasingly unlikely the CEO will leave the business entirely. The last time around, he joined Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital (that is where he forged a relationship with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman), and one can imagine him pursuing a similar move this time: As an investor and an adviser, though not as an operator.

Though one wonders if he might still occasionally make the trip to Anaheim to walk the park Walt built. That was, after all, where D’Amaro and Iger went in their first public appearance together after D’Amaro was announced as Iger’s successor.

The pair walked Disneyland, saying hello to cast members and taking photos with Disney fans, taking it in.