NEW DELHI: Robert (Bob) Iger abruptly stepped aside as Walt Disney’s chief executive officer, handing the reins to theme parks head Bob Chapek after years of speculation over who would succeed the longtime CEO of the world’s largest entertainment company.
Chapek, 60, who led Disney’s theme parks and consumer products businesses, takes over immediately, the company said on Tuesday. Iger will stay to direct the company’s creative endeavours as executive chairman through 2021.
With the appointment, Chapek lands one of the most coveted jobs in entertainment. He’s a 27-year company veteran who led Disney’s home-video business during the DVD era, before transitioning to consumer products. In that role, he reorganised the business to cut costs and focus on franchises, including the “Frozen” toy craze.
“It’s a huge surprise,” Laura Martin, a Needham & Co analyst, said on Bloomberg Television. “The suddenness of it — the fact that it’s as of today and they don’t have a new parks head yet — makes it feel like it’s all very sudden.” The change jolted investors, who sent the shares down in premarket trading on Wednesday.
But in an interview on Bloomberg Television, Chapek said he’ll follow the course laid out by Iger, who has recently steered the company into new streaming businesses such as Disney+. “The centre of our brand is creative storytelling,” Chapek said.
While Disney had been under pressure to name a successor, Iger wasn’t expected to relinquish the CEO role right away. The timing of the announcement, just weeks after an upbeat earnings report, created an air of mystery around a transition that has been frequent parlour talk in Hollywood.
Disney has bet its future on streaming services, including the Disney+ platform that launched in November 2019. That had fuelled speculation that its streaming chief, Kevin Mayer, was in line for the CEO job.
On a call with investors on Tuesday, Iger said the transition will allow him to focus on creative endeavours at the company in a way that he couldn’t when he was still running the business day-to-day.
Chapek, 60, who led Disney’s theme parks and consumer products businesses, takes over immediately, the company said on Tuesday. Iger will stay to direct the company’s creative endeavours as executive chairman through 2021.
With the appointment, Chapek lands one of the most coveted jobs in entertainment. He’s a 27-year company veteran who led Disney’s home-video business during the DVD era, before transitioning to consumer products. In that role, he reorganised the business to cut costs and focus on franchises, including the “Frozen” toy craze.
“It’s a huge surprise,” Laura Martin, a Needham & Co analyst, said on Bloomberg Television. “The suddenness of it — the fact that it’s as of today and they don’t have a new parks head yet — makes it feel like it’s all very sudden.” The change jolted investors, who sent the shares down in premarket trading on Wednesday.
But in an interview on Bloomberg Television, Chapek said he’ll follow the course laid out by Iger, who has recently steered the company into new streaming businesses such as Disney+. “The centre of our brand is creative storytelling,” Chapek said.
While Disney had been under pressure to name a successor, Iger wasn’t expected to relinquish the CEO role right away. The timing of the announcement, just weeks after an upbeat earnings report, created an air of mystery around a transition that has been frequent parlour talk in Hollywood.
Disney has bet its future on streaming services, including the Disney+ platform that launched in November 2019. That had fuelled speculation that its streaming chief, Kevin Mayer, was in line for the CEO job.
On a call with investors on Tuesday, Iger said the transition will allow him to focus on creative endeavours at the company in a way that he couldn’t when he was still running the business day-to-day.
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