Who’s Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s subsequent CEO? – Worldwide Dispatch

The Walt Disney Co. has a brand new CEO — Josh D’Amaro.

The chairman of Disney’s experiences division, which incorporates the corporate’s theme parks, cruise line, resorts and shopper merchandise, was named to succeed longtime CEO Bob Iger. He would be the eighth CEO in Disney’s greater than 100-year historical past.

D’Amaro, 54, joined Disney in 1998 and has held management roles each domestically and internationally, together with chief monetary officer of Disney’s shopper merchandise world licensing division, president of Disneyland Resort and president of Walt Disney World Resort.

“Josh is someone who’s acquired a long time of expertise at Disney,” James Gorman, chairman of Disney’s board of administrators, advised CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on Tuesday. “He is an enormous operator. He is run large operations throughout the entire parks and cruises companies. He is additionally acquired nice inventive contact.”

D’Amaro’s appointment to the highest job as soon as once more brings to the fore Disney’s storied historical past in park-going at a time of large progress for the division — with Disney committing to $60 billion in park investments over a decade. D’Amaro beat out Dana Walden, co-chairman of Disney Leisure, for the CEO spot after a carefully watched succession race.

Since D’Amaro took over as head of experiences in Might 2020, income within the the division has grown practically 40%, from $26.2 billion in fiscal 2019 to $36.2 billion in fiscal 2025.

Final yr the enterprise unit accounted for about 40% of Disney’s complete annual income.

Maybe extra spectacular is the division’s earnings: Experiences working revenue has jumped from $6.8 billion in fiscal 2019 to $10 billion in fiscal 2025, an almost 50% enhance. Since fiscal 2022, the experiences division has accounted for anyplace between 55% and 70% of Disney’s earnings.

Now in his twenty eighth yr with the corporate, D’Amaro has a confirmed observe file with customers and has been instrumental within the progress of the experiences division since taking up the helm within the early months of the Covid pandemic.

On the time, virtually each side of the experiences section was shuttered — home and worldwide parks have been closed, cruises remained at port and resorts have been left vacant. However throughout that shutdown interval, when it was protected to have staff on campus, D’Amaro started working. Development continued on the brand new Avengers-themed land on the Disneyland Resort in California, and beauty updates have been made throughout the corporate’s home parks.

Disney additionally upgraded its visitor know-how, a fixture of Disney’s theme parks by way of rides and points of interest. Cellular ordering capabilities have been expanded, and the corporate started work on what would develop into a brand new itinerary service and a brand new manner for parkgoers to buy passes to skip strains for sure rides.

After parks and resorts reopened, D’Amaro oversaw the launches of latest rides like Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Tron Lightcycle Run, Tiana’s Bayou Journey, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and Remy’s Ratatouille Journey in addition to new themed lands just like the refurbished Mickey’s Toontown in Disneyland.

Worldwide growth expanded, too, with the opening of Fantasy Springs at Tokyo Disneyland and a “Zootopia”-themed land at Shanghai Disneyland.

D’Amaro was additionally the chief behind the expansion in Disney’s cruise line, which is about to double its fleet dimension by 2031. Three new ships have already set sail, with a fourth on the way in which in April.

Over in shopper merchandise, D’Amaro pushed Iger to take a position $1.5 billion in Epic Video games, giving Disney a digital playground throughout the firm’s on-line recreation Fortnite. This house is especially necessary to draw a youthful demographic that has develop into tougher and tougher for corporations to achieve.

D’Amaro’s acquired expertise outdoors of the division, too. As Disney has infused extra of its movie franchises into its theme parks, cruises and resorts, he is partnered with the corporate’s studio heads. Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, Disney Animation and extra have develop into intermingled with D’Amaro’s division.

“Josh is definitely deep within the IP,” Gorman mentioned. “He has labored with a lot of the producers of the IP in including new points of interest, new rides, to parks everywhere in the world. And he is been crucial working with Bob on this new growth, very thrilling growth in Abu Dhabi, [United Arab Emirates]. So Josh positively has his avenue cred in that regard.”

The place D’Amaro will face a studying curve in taking up as CEO is in Disney’s streaming and linear tv enterprise.

Years of industrywide cord-+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++reducing and a decline in promoting income has weighed closely on all gamers within the media house, together with Disney.

Whereas conventional TV stays worthwhile, streaming has develop into the main target for media corporations trying to recapture these subscribers and maintain their content material entrance and middle.

Whereas Disney’s flagship streaming service, Disney+, initially gained subscribers at a quick clip, the corporate has extra just lately turned to different initiatives like bundling its streaming companies, providing a less expensive, ad-supported tier and cracking down on password sharing in an effort to fight slowing progress.

When Iger returned to the helm of Disney in late 2022, build up streaming — Disney+, in addition to Hulu and ESPN — remained a precedence.

On Monday Disney reported quarterly income for its leisure section, which incorporates streaming and theatrical releases, of $11.61 billion, up 7% yr over yr. Nonetheless, it was the primary quarter that Disney did not report streaming subscriber numbers.

Sustaining the steadiness of Disney’s streaming future will probably be a key focus for the corporate’s subsequent CEO.

“Trying again only a few years when our film enterprise was affected by Covid and the streaming enterprise was clearly not in a suitable place, it is clear that the way forward for each of these companies, or let’s name it our leisure enterprise, can be vibrant and it’ll develop,” Iger mentioned on the corporate’s earnings name Monday.

D’Amaro may also deal with the legacy of his predecessor. The final time Iger stepped away from the corporate, he returned lower than two years later to proper the ship.

— CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report.