The CEO swap that Disney surprised us with in early 2020 has been reversed with Bob Iger coming back to his post. Iger will serve a new two-year term as CEO. Iger will need to groom his long-term successor in the two years that follow.
It was Iger's choice as well. Their handover got off to a rocky start, with blowups like the Black Widow lawsuit and Disney's initial lack of response to the "Don't Say Gay" bill.
Julia Alexander, a senior strategy analyst at Parrot Analytics, spoke about the issues facing Chapek during an episode of the Decoder.
...Bob Chapek is in a difficult position of trying to take Disney, a legacy company of yesterday, and make it into a legacy company of tomorrow. That means becoming more like a tech company rather than a traditional media and entertainment company. He arguably runs it the way that some tech companies might, where he breaks up the content production and the distribution. He goes in and says, “This is how it is going to work; we are focusing on streaming, on the Metaverse, and on how to get into these different positions.”
All of these issues happen at the same time. So it seems like Bob Chapek is losing control of the kingdom, versus Bob Iger had control over it. But what I think gets lost in that is that Bob Chapek is just over two years into his tenure as CEO, and his first job was pulling the company out of the pandemic and focusing on how to just survive it. Now he’s being tasked with carrying the company very publicly in a way that generates support from the shareholders, from the consumers, and from his employees. That’s easier said than done, especially for someone who’s so new to the role.
While Iger initially pushed Disney into the streaming wars, the reorganization of the company ruffled feathers by putting a non-streaming executive in charge of everything.
The change in leadership comes nearly two weeks after Disney reported disappointing Q4 results. The costs of streaming are rising even though the number of subscribers opting for a bundle is increasing. There are rumors that there will be layoffs when Disney Plus launches on December 8th.
Susan Arnold, Disney's board chair, said in a statement that, "We thank Bob for his service to Disney over his long career, including navigating the company through the unprecedented challenges of the Pandemic." Disney is embarking on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation and Bob Iger is uniquely positioned to lead the Company through this crucial period.
The press release didn't mention Bob chapek.
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