Who is Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s next CEO?

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 any person who’s obtained many years of expertise at Disney,” James Gorman, chairman of Disney’s board of administrators, informed 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 obtained nice artistic 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 development 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 intently watched succession race.

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

Final 12 months the enterprise unit accounted for about 40% of Disney’s whole 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 wherever between 55% and 70% of Disney’s earnings.

Now in his twenty eighth 12 months with the corporate, D’Amaro has a confirmed observe file with shoppers and has been instrumental within the development of the experiences division since taking on 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 inns have been left vacant. However throughout that shutdown interval, when it was protected to have employees on campus, D’Amaro set to work. 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 expertise, a fixture of Disney’s theme parks by way of rides and sights. 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 method for parkgoers to buy passes to skip strains for sure rides.

After parks and resorts reopened, D’Amaro oversaw the launches of recent 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 improvement 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 set 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 speculate $1.5 billion in Epic Video games, giving Disney a digital playground throughout the firm’s on-line sport Fortnite. This area is notably vital to draw a youthful demographic that has develop into more durable and more durable for corporations to achieve.

D’Amaro’s obtained expertise exterior of the division, too. As Disney has infused extra of its movie franchises into its theme parks, cruises and inns, 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 truly deep within the IP,” Gorman mentioned. “He has labored with various the producers of the IP in including new sights, new rides, to parks all around the world. And he is been vital working with Bob on this new improvement, very thrilling improvement 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 on as CEO is in Disney’s streaming and linear tv enterprise.

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

Whereas conventional TV stays worthwhile, streaming has develop into the main focus for media corporations trying to recapture these subscribers and preserve 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 providers, providing a less expensive, ad-supported tier and cracking down on password sharing in an effort to fight slowing development.

When Iger returned to the helm of Disney in late 2022, increase 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% 12 months over 12 months. Nonetheless, it was the primary quarter that Disney did not report streaming subscriber numbers.

Sustaining the steadiness of Disney’s streaming future might be a key focus for the corporate’s next 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, is additionally shiny and it’ll develop,” Iger mentioned on the corporate’s earnings name Monday.

D’Amaro will even 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.