A new Disney CEO is a momentous thing. What makes Wednesday’s handoff from Bob Iger to Josh D’Amaro especially notable is the calm: Disney succession hasn’t been this drama-free in more than 30 years.

The process was transparent. Key leaders from Dana Walden to Alan Bergman down the new org chart are staying put. Historically, the Mouse loses top executives during CEO transitions, from Jeffrey Katzenberg back in 1994 to parks chair Jay Rasulo, CFO Tom Staggs, Direct-to-Consumer & International Chair Kevin Mayer and chairman of Disney General Entertainment Content Peter Rice, to name a handful. Over the years, messy planning has led to controversial, costly golden parachutes, shareholder lawsuits, a stockholder revolt and a bitter, distracting proxy fight.

This time has been different.

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A long vetting process put the energetic and articulate Josh D’Amaro in view for well over a year. He has said he’s ready for the challenge. As importantly, Wall Street and Hollywood, Disney insiders and fans, are ready for him. No one likes surprises. “Did not see this coming – Wowza,” tweeted analyst Rich Greenfield of LightShed Partners moments after Bob Chapek was named CEO six years ago, expressing the jittery sentiment of that transition.

“How Charismatic D’Amaro Can Right The Ship, Restore Premium Valuation,” is the title of a report this morning from Guggenheim’s Michael Morris. He ticked off challenges facing the company but believes D’Amaro’s rise “represents a potential inflection point” for addressing” them.

Extremely well-regarded executive and CEO runner-up Walden is staying put at Disney as president and chief creative officer, a new role with a greatly expanded portfolio. Other potential CEO candidates all remain on the org chart, at least for now. Walden revealed the new leadership structure of Disney Entertainment earlier this week.

“Everybody wants more. It’s human nature. We have a great team. I have tremendous respect for all executives. I think this has landed in a very stable and appropriate way, and I’m cheering them all,” said Disney chairman James Gorman, who led the process.

Bob Iger has finally, truly, stepped back. In 2020, he remained in a nebulous creative oversight role and also executive chairman, enabling him to nitpick Chapek, leading to chaotic and disruptive internal politics. “When I returned in 2022, people had lost confidence in the company they worked for,” Iger said in a pre-recorded video shown at Wednesday’s annual shareholder meeting. “Today, everywhere I turn, I sense confidence and excitement about what lies ahead.”

Disney as a company learned from the Chapek saga. Another boost, some observers say, was that this time Iger was ready to go.

“This was the time we had to get this right, and I was absolutely committed,” Gorman said in an interview with Deadline last month discussing the search and final decision.

“We were looking for somebody who understood the culture, who loved the brand, who had the personal qualities that you look for in a leader, that is aspirational, that is positive,” he said. “You also look for somebody who’s strategic, who can think about where the industry is going, not just where it’s been, who can forge important partnerships.” D’Amaro has “decades of experience at Disney. He’s run massive operations across the whole parks and cruises businesses. He’s also got a great creative touch.”

Kevin Groves, professor of organization theory and management at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School, praised the “smooth” process. It’s called a “relay succession,” he said, focused on “several candidates that were reporting to Iger. Clear visibility and an understanding of these candidates’ abilities are signs of a high-quality … and a comprehensive process.”

A Look Back

Disney was founded by Walt Disney and his brother Roy O. Disney in 1923. Walt died in 1966, Roy in 1971. A succession of longtime Disney executives stepped up until the company hired its first outside CEO, Michael Eisner, from Paramount, in 1984.

Eisner was paired with a Warner Bros. executive named Frank Wells as president and chief operating officer and the two developed a close and constructive professional and personal relationship. Wells died died tragically in a 1994 helicopter crash, an event widely felt to have set the stage for the company’s subsequent string of succession woes.

Eisner underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 1994. Following that, he named his friend and uber agent Michael Ovitz president. But the relationship deteriorated and Ovitz only lasted about 14 months before exiting with quite a large payout for such a short tenure, prompting a nasty and high profile shareholder lawsuit against Eisner and the board in Delaware Chancery Court to claw back the package. Those suits face a tough road, and that one ultimately failed. Ovitz kept the $130 million (about $277 million in today’s dollars). He claimed he was sabotaged by fellow executives, including Eisner.

(L-R) Michael Eisner and Michael Ovitz in 1994 Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images

Meanwhile, then-Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, angered at being passed over after Wells died, left the company to co-found rival studio DreamWorks. He later sued Disney for $250 million for breach of contract. The parties ultimately agreed to settle.

Fast forward a decade. Eisner was targeted by Roy E. Disney at a tumultuous 2004 shareholder meeting. The nephew of Walt, along with his financial advisor Stanley Gold, led a successful revolt that forced Eisner’s resignation as chairman initially and led soon after to his very reluctant departure as chief executive. There was noisy search. He ultimately endorsed then-president and COO Bob Iger as his successor and the baton passed in 2005.

Iger would go on to negotiate Disney’s acquisition of Pixar followed by deals for Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox, which vastly grew the company’s IP and cemented his reputation a brilliant strategist. He led Disney into streaming media and made critical investments in international parks.

The board extended his contract as he continued to anoint, then reject, potential successors. He set a bake-off between Rasulo and Staggs. He named Staggs COO in 2015 and things appeared settled. Rasulo resigned – resurfacing in 2023 as an Iger adversary alongside activist investor Nelson Peltz.

Staggs was popular. Then, a shocker: Disney said in a statement that it would “broaden” its search for CEO candidates. Staggs walked. Iger’s contract was extended through 2021.

February Surprise

As that time approached, succession again loomed large. Kevin Mayer, integral to Disney’s strategic planning and who had recently led the blockbuster launch of Disney+, was viewed a potential heir apparent. Peter Rice, then the respected head of Disney’s TV entertainment business, was also considered a strong CEO contender.

Then came an even bigger shocker.

Iger suddenly announced his retirement in 2020 just as Covid was taking hold. He had chosen Bob Chapek as his handpicked successor. It was completely unexpected and Chapek, chairman of Parks Experiences and Products and head of home entertainment prior to that, was little known outside the company.

Mayer was blindsided, and promptly left to run TikTok. Rice was later pushed out by Chapek.

The succession choice was not successful and stained Iger’s otherwise burnished reputation. It also tarnished the reputation of the Disney board, which was seen as pushing Chapek through without a thorough process. As the months went on, the executive alienated key constituencies. Complicating things, the succession called for Iger to stay on as executive chairman for 22 months with Chapek reporting both to him and to the board as he retained a kind of oversight of Disney’s creative endeavors.

Chapek’s woes as Disney chief have been well documented, from his tangles in Florida to an ugly public spat with Scarlett Johansson to alienating top executives by removing creative decision-making authority in a hugely unpopular restructuring.

And yet, in June 2022, Disney’s board unanimously voted to extend Chapek’s CEO contract for three years, calling him “the right leader at the right time for The Walt Disney Company.”

A short time after that vote of confidence, the board turned around and fired him.

“In succession-planning mode you are considering all kinds of aptitude, experience, turnaround projects, strategic partnerships, acquisitions, all of the ways to understand candidates and their capability,” Pepperdine’s Groves said. “But also temperament, relationship skills. Can this person collaborate? Can this person navigate crises?”

Bob Iger Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images

Boomerang Bob

Chapek’s firing was announced with news that Iger was returning. He came out of retirement as what’s called a “boomerang” CEO. He cut costs, grew streaming, made some big moves around sports and ESPN, and retooled the movie studio. He also faced an expensive proxy battle launched by Peltz and Rasulo. The botched succession gave Peltz ammunition to call for board accountability as he pushed for director seats for himself and Rasulo. Shareholders ultimately did not vote them onto the board, but it was a bruising and expensive battle.

The board, which had at that point extended Iger’s contract through the end of 2026, promised to make succession a top priority. It brought on Gorman, the well-respected former Morgan Stanley chief, as chairman to oversee the process and announced in October 2024 that it would unveil Iger’s successor in early 2026.

Gorman had won praise for engineering a smooth succession at Morgan Stanley and has done so at Disney. A robust search inside and outside the company eventually appeared to narrow to two names: D’Amaro and Walden. Jimmy Pitaro, chairman of ESPN, and Alan Bergman, chairman of Disney Entertainment, Studios, had initially also been considered.

The board ultimately settled on D’Amaro. No one was taken by surprise. Gorman immediately made himself available for interviews to discuss the decision.

The official handoff happened Wednesday, March 18, at Disney’s annual shareholder meeting.

Iger will remain a board member for the rest of 2026 but, unlike in the Chapek era, he will function as an advisor only – “available and on call should anyone want advice from me,” as he put it in an ABC interview last month. D’Amaro has promised to call.