None of this will come as a shock to longtime Disney watchers. Chairman of Disney Experiences, Josh D’Amaro, has long been viewed as the leading internal candidate to eventually succeed Bob Iger. Today, Disney made it official, announcing that Josh D’Amaro will become Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company, with Dana Walden named President and Chief Creative Officer.
The transition will happen quickly. Both executives will assume their new roles on March 18, 2026, following Disney’s annual shareholder meeting.
In 2023, Disney reorganized the company into three major segments: Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Parks, Experiences and Products. Since that restructuring, D’Amaro has led the parks and experiences division, while Walden has overseen Disney Entertainment alongside co-chairman Alan Bergman.
Speaking on Disney’s February 2, 2026 earnings call, Bob Iger framed the transition as the culmination of a longer recovery and repositioning effort.
“Anyone who runs a company knows that it can’t just be about fixing; it has to be about preparing a company for its future and…taking steps to create opportunities for growth,” Iger said on the Feb. 2, 2026 Disney earnings call. “The good news is that the company is in much better shape today than it was three years ago, because we have done a lot of fixing, but we’ve also put in place a number of opportunities…to expand at every location that we do business.”
Both D’Amaro and Walden had been discussed as potential successors for some time. Disney’s decision to elevate both executives simultaneously appears designed to balance leadership across the company’s two largest creative engines: parks and experiences on one side, entertainment and media on the other.
Who is Josh D’Amaro?
Since 2020, D’Amaro has served as Chairman of Disney Experiences, overseeing Disney’s theme parks and resorts in California, Florida, Paris, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo… with more parks on the way.
Over his nearly three decades at Disney, D’Amaro has held a wide range of leadership roles, including President of Disneyland Resort and President of Walt Disney World Resort, as well as earlier positions in operations, finance, and strategy.
In addition to the parks, his portfolio has included Disney Consumer Products, Disney Signature Experiences (Disney Cruise Line, Disney Vacation Club, Adventures by Disney), and Walt Disney Imagineering.
What D’Amaro has not overseen directly is Disney’s film, television, or streaming businesses. And that’s not an insignificant challenge for a new CEO tasked with running one of the most successful and historic movie studios started by Walt Disney himself.
Who Is Dana Walden?
While less visible to theme park fans, Dana Walden is one of the most experienced television executives in the industry. As co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, she has overseen ABC Entertainment, ABC News, Disney Television Studios, Disney+, FX, Hulu, Freeform, and National Geographic.
Her current co-chair, Alan Bergman, leads Disney’s film studios, including Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, and Searchlight Pictures. Under the new structure, Walden’s role expands significantly. As Chief Creative Officer, she will now oversee both television and film, along with Walt Disney Imagineering, giving her broad creative authority across the entire company.
But does Walden, who comes from Fox rather than Disney, truly understand what it means to be “Disney”? Disney has tried to be hip and edgy many times in the past… it is always met with failure. People love Disney for what the brand represents, and it’s unclear if Walden yet understands what consumers want… particularly from the parks.
Why Disney Created a New Power Structure
The contrast between the two executives is clear. Walden brings deep experience running major film and television operations. D’Amaro brings decades of experience operating Disney’s global parks and experiences.
Rather than naming co-CEOs, a scenario that had been widely rumored, the board opted for a single CEO with a newly empowered creative counterpart. D’Amaro will have final authority as CEO, while Walden will control creative strategy across studios, streaming, and Imagineering.
From an investor perspective, the structure appears designed to reassure stakeholders that no major business segment is being left without seasoned leadership.
Disney Executive Shuffle
One of the more notable aspects of the announcement is the speed of the transition. D’Amaro and Walden will step into their new roles immediately following the March 18 shareholder meeting. The board also intends to appoint D’Amaro as a director at that time, signaling full confidence in his leadership from day one.
Now that the succession decision has been made, attention turns to the rest of Disney’s executive lineup.
Disney has not yet announced who will replace D’Amaro as Chairman of Disney Experiences. Disneyland President Thomas Mazloum is widely viewed as a leading internal candidate, though no decision has been confirmed.
It is also unclear whether Alan Bergman will retain the “Co-Chairman” title at Disney Entertainment or whether that structure will change. Bergman had also been considered a possible CEO contender, and as is often the case in corporate transitions, future leadership adjustments remain an open question.
Several senior creative and operational leaders will remain in place, including Bruce Vaughn (President and CCO of Walt Disney Imagineering), David Greenbaum (President of Disney Live Action Studios), and Jared Bush (CCO of Walt Disney Animation Studios).
What About Bob?
Bob Iger will remain with the company as a Senior Advisor and board member through December 31, 2026, after which he will retire fully from Disney.
Succession planning has long been viewed as one of Iger’s more complicated legacies. Over the years, multiple internal candidates were positioned, promoted, and ultimately sidelined, culminating in the short and turbulent Chapek era, which nearly destroyed the company.
This transition appears more deliberate, but it is not without risk. Neither D’Amaro nor Walden has rotated through the other’s core business, and neither has served in a traditional COO or CFO role overseeing the full enterprise.
Market reaction to the announcement wasn’t immediately positive. Disney’s share price dipped following the news, suggesting that investors remain cautious and are waiting to see how the new leadership team proves itself, particularly as D’Amaro steps into oversight of Disney’s media businesses.
Our Take
Josh D’Amaro is a respected operator with a strong track record in Disney’s largest revenue-generating division. Given time, there is every reason to believe he can grow into the role of CEO.
But this transition leaves almost no margin for error.
Both D’Amaro and Walden are stepping into vastly expanded responsibilities without having had meaningful experience in each other’s domains. If the partnership works, Disney could benefit from a rare balance of operational discipline and creative focus. If it doesn’t, Disney’s own history suggests the outcome can be chaotic, expensive, and short-lived.
The unanswered question is cultural as much as strategic. Walden is a highly accomplished executive, but she comes from Fox, well outside Disney’s traditional creative pipeline. As the company charts its future, the tension between doubling down on franchise expansion (more Avatar in the parks, anyone?) and preserving the core identity built around Mickey and 100+ years of storytelling, and parks-driven innovation will be impossible to ignore.
Under D’Amaro’s leadership, Disney’s parks have undeniably become bigger, more profitable, and more capacity-driven. At the same time, the guest experience has increasingly shifted from spontaneous exploration to something that must be carefully planned months in advance, optimized through apps, and often supplemented with upcharges just to access what once felt basic. Live entertainment has been pared back, especially at Disneyland, replaced by systems designed to manage flow and revenue rather than delight.
To be clear, this is not accidental. It’s exactly what Bob Chapek tasked him to do. But he never fully stepped out of Chapek’s shadow before accepting this new role. And that’s worrisome.
The question now is whether that same mindset can successfully run a company whose creative engine depends on risk-taking, intuition, and long-term brand trust, not just yield management and operational efficiency.
This leadership structure can work. But it places enormous pressure on two executives to learn fast, align perfectly, and avoid repeating Disney’s very recent succession mistakes.
Whether Disney has given them enough runway to succeed… remains an open question.
So what do you think? Do Josh D’Amaro and Dana Walden have what it takes to steer Disney toward the best version of itself, or are we watching another high-stakes experiment play out in real time? And have either of them been properly prepared to walk in Walt’s footsteps?
We’ll leave you with this comment by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who levels praise wrapped with a cautionary note:
“Congratulations to Josh D’Amaro for becoming the CEO of the Walt Disney Company, and congratulations to Chairman James Gorman for making such a wise pick as well as promoting Dana Walden to president and chief creative officer. My advice to Josh is continue Bob Iger’s strategy that creativity will handle profits, always protect the brand, and keep close the words of Walt Disney: ‘We love to entertain kings and queens, but the vital thing to remember is this—every guest receives the VIP treatment.’ Good luck.”