D’Amaro named next CEO

[Moonspinner]

I’m not sure where you get your information. Iger took over and the stock was @ $25, he’s leaving @ $100 -and that includes the huge drop under Chapek(covid) from almost $200 to $85. If that’s destroying stock price, give me another 20-years like that again!

Obviously, dis should be around $200 right now. Stock market has hit all time highs recently. The guy makes insane amounts of money to do a job, and overall he’s failed. He was never held accountable either.

 

[GAN]

D'Amaro, like Iger, is very effective at controlling his image. That's why he is the choice. I continue to believe that Chapek's term as CEO was essentially as an intentional fall guy - they put him in charge, let him make a bunch of unpopular (but profitable) business decisions, then gave him his golden parachute. Did they roll those decisions back? Nope.

While I love the Parks, you can't make a coherent argument that things have been getting better. Like many other services and products in the world, prices are going up and quality is trending down. Pay more & get less is the modern way for corporations to make money, and it's sad to see Disney find themselves there as well.

I have no opinion of D'Amaro one way or the other, really. As said above, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Unless they start properly staffing the parks and maintenance teams (but that would eat into profits), I'm going to be grumpy.

They hired the guy directly responsible for the negative changes to Parks, D’Amaro. Chapek was his boss -if the directive came from Chapek, D’Amaro did nothing to fight for Parks. He chose to not make waves and be the dutiful subordinate…. Not someone I’d ever want as my CEO. The other angle would be that it was all D’Amaro’s doing without Chapek’s influence, and that’s even worse in my opinion!

 

[GAN]

Obviously, dis should be around $200 right now. Stock market has hit all time highs recently. The guy makes insane amounts of money to do a job, and overall he’s failed. He was never held accountable either.

You have to compare DIS with other stocks in its own industry(entertainment), not with the market as a whole. Yes, the market is up but that’s because of an unusually large growth coming out of AI -other industries aren’t surging and entertainment is one of them.

 

[reddog21]

he was very bad at his job as parks head - should never had been promoted

strongly disagree with that, Chapek was as much qualified to lead the company as anyone else. I would argue he's is/was more qualified then D'Amaro is.

Having qualifications and doing the job are two completely different things. Just because you’re a Rhodes Scholar doesn’t mean you can manage a lemonade stand.

 

[reddog21]

The guy makes insane amounts of money to do a job, and overall he’s failed

You realize how ridiculous that sounds? Iger's pay is almost entirely tied to company performance, so if he's being paid, it means the company is performing the way the board wants it to, hence the huge salary.

 

[fatmanatee]

A lot of complaints about the leadership, which is sort of fair, but they're all executing the board's vision...

 

[tom1944]

I have no idea if he is a good or bad selection. I do have a question for those against him- who would you have liked?

 

[Former DVC Owner]

All I need to know is if the new CEO is that guy in the Star Wars Hotel promo video who’s doing lightsaber training.

 

[Moonspinner]

You have to compare DIS with other stocks in its own industry(entertainment), not with the market as a whole. Yes, the market is up but that’s because of an unusually large growth coming out of AI -other industries aren’t surging and entertainment is one of them.

I don’t compare myself with my peers to justify failure. I compare myself with my peers to learn and see what I can do better. IMO Disney has a better product than all of its peers and should be outperforming, not happy with mediocrity.

 

[Moonspinner]

You realize how ridiculous that sounds? Iger's pay is almost entirely tied to company performance, so if he's being paid, it means the company is performing the way the board wants it to, hence the huge salary.

We all know that Iger has the board in his pocket.

 

[Moonspinner]

I have no idea if he is a good or bad selection. I do have a question for those against him- who would you have liked?

Bill Diercksen, but he was never going to get chosen by Iger because he would have outperformed Iger. There were others too but Iger already got rid of them.

 

[Moonspinner]

All I need to know is if the new CEO is that guy in the Star Wars Hotel promo video who’s doing lightsaber training.

He looks like a complete fool in that. When that video originally came out, DH and I both said he was set up to look unprofessional.

 

[HokieRaven5]

At her pay, it almost looks like Dana is effectively Co-CEO without naming her as such.

Josh’s Compensation package is up to $38M with $2.5M base salary

Dana’s is up to $25M with a $3.75M base salary.

 

[irlandaise]

Yeah, I mean, Dana is a business person - she's never directed a film. Has she even produced one? I just don't think Chief Creative Officer is the role for her. Is she going to question the true creatives - Pete Doctor, Jennifer Lee? I mean, it's fine if she just lets them work, but I don't know. I feel like a different role for her would have been better. Heck, she'd probably be better as CEO with Josh more in the creative end, but I am not sure she's earned that over Josh at this point. The title just feels forced.

I wonder whether the title really indicates what she'll be doing. Someone was suggesting in the stock thread a few days ago that it might make sense to name D'Amaro CEO but give Walden a big promotion to help with the Hollywood side of things, where she has a lot of connections. So maybe "Chief Creative Officer" is just something they tacked on to give her a more impressive title but her role is actually intended to take advantage of her film/TV business experience. We'll find out...

 

[Chuck96]

Meanwhile, DAK opens on a busy Sunday with Flight, Expedition, and Dinosaur down.

EDIT: This made a little more sense coming right after HokieRaven5's post....

 

[BrianL]

I wonder whether the title really indicates what she'll be doing. Someone was suggesting in the stock thread a few days ago that it might make sense to name D'Amaro CEO but give Walden a big promotion to help with the Hollywood side of things, where she has a lot of connections. So maybe "Chief Creative Officer" is just something they tacked on to give her a more impressive title but her role is actually intended to take advantage of her film/TV business experience. We'll find out...

But she has film business experience, but not really production experience - at least I don't think so. That's why the title seems so odd.

 

[PsylockeSmythe]

Obviously, dis should be around $200 right now. Stock market has hit all time highs recently. The guy makes insane amounts of money to do a job, and overall he’s failed. He was never held accountable either.

Disney doesn't currently have the earnings and earnings growth to support a $200 stock price. The price it hit during the covid years was an outlier. As I wrote on the DIS stock thread back on in January:

They are going to need to grow their earnings to get the stock price back close to $200 a share, and by grow, I mean they will need to get the EPS to grow to closer to $10 a share from their current levels. Disney's trailing 12-month EPS (September 2025) was $6.85 a share which gives it a current PE of 16.1 at yesterday's closing share price.

From 2012 to 2019 Disney had an average PE around 17.4, with a high of 22.6 in 2019 and a low of 14.2 back in 2012. I'm not adding in the 2020 to 2024 in those numbers due to the covid and post covid distortion of the PE.

Disney is not a growth company and are not going to get the same PE multiple that companies like the Mag 7 are getting. If Disney can grow earnings by around 15% at a historical PE of around 17.4 just gets you to a share price around $137.

Wall Street is not going to rate Disney as a growth company and give them the same type of multiplier that other companies are getting (some more than they should).

Disney stock should be higher, but I feel it should be more in the $125 to $135 range.

Psy

 

[deedubb]

I used to really like Iger, but he doesn't seem to have done much of anything since he returned. I don't expect much different from D'Amaro but hope he proves me wrong. I'm pretty easy to please. Bring back the Magical Express and would like to see Disney stock move in the right direction and I would be a happy camper.

 

[reddog21]

I used to really like Iger, but he doesn't seem to have done much of anything since he returned.

Huh????
Disney+/Hulu finally reached profitability
Took full control of Hulu from comcast
Reorganized entertainment/espn/experiences
Greenlit a 10 year 60 billion park expansion
Huge cruise line growth
he slowed down the release of more star wars/marvel content to work on better creative output
First time in years that Disney has have multiple billion dollar hits
Espn just finished acquiring nfl network(time will if it was worth it)

His main focus upon returning was to address the issues within the company, focusing on consolidation and modernization. It’s neither flashy nor growth-driven, but it’s far from insignificant. Sometimes you have to step back and correct the course before moving forward.

 

[bdrex28]

I can't speak to anything other than seeing D'Amaro in an interaction.

A little over a year ago we were staying at BWV. I walked out to our vehicle in the parking lot and noticed a gentleman dressed nicely with a Disney name tag.

Anyway, he was talking to ground crew and others who normally attend the lobby doors and they were all laughing and cutting up and I thought it was pretty impressive as you could tell he was most likely an executive. I asked a cast member inside the lobby who it was and they said Josh and mentioned how nice he was.

Hopefully that's a good sign but I thought it was pretty cool. Obviously, just a hidden interaction I happened to see