The Walt Disney Company has given Morgan Stanley executive chairman James P. Gorman the weighty task of overseeing the search for the next CEO when Bob Iger’s current term ends in 2026.
Gorman joined the Disney board earlier this year and oversaw the recent succession process at Morgan Stanley, where he served as the banking giant’s chairman and CEO.
The new chair of the succession planning committee joins as the process to appoint Iger’s replacement is well underway.
The committee was formed in January 2023 and along with the board it is currently evaluating internal and external candidates. Internal candidates are going through a preparation process that includes mentorship from Iger and external coaching.
The leading internal candidates are Disney Entertainment co-head Dana Walden and Alan Bergman, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro, and Disney Parks, Experiences and Products head Josh D’Amaro.
The committee says it has met six times to date in fiscal 2024, while the board asserts it has discussed succession planning at each of its regularly scheduled meetings in fiscal 2024.
Iger, who is now 73, spent 15 years as CEO before retiring as executive chairman in 2021 and has served more than four decades at Disney.
He was reappointed CEO in November 2022, ending the brief and ill-fated tenure of his successor at the time, Bob Chapek, who assumed the reins in February 2020 as the world was about to enter Covid lockdown.
This year Iger has won a boardroom battle against activist investor Nelson Peltz, laid off thousands of employees amid industry-wide downsizing, seen both Pixar’s Inside Out 2 and Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine soar past $1bn at the worldwide box office, and maintained the push towards streaming profitability amid the ongoing decline of linear television.
In a new interview this week on the podcast Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa, Iger addressed succession. “It would be safe to assume I think about this all the time,” he told Ripa. “To say I am obsessed with it would probably be an understatement.”
Gorman has held executive positions at Merrill Lynch and was a senior partner at McKinsey & Co. He serves as a director of the Council On Foreign Relations and is a member of the Business Council. He previously served as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and president of the Federal Advisory Council to the U.S. Federal Reserve Board.
In addition to Gorman and board chairman Mark G. Parker, directors Mary T. Barra and Calvin R. McDonald will continue to serve on the committee.
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