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After a three year search, Disney's board and his chairman, James Gorman, have named a CEO successor. Josh Tomorrow, will be promoted for being Parks chief to succeed Bobby IgA in March of this year. Mister Gorman joins us. Now, good morning, miss Gorman, thank you for your time. I mean, let's start with the simple question, why James Tomorrow.
Well, it's Josh Tomorrow Tomorrow. Good morning, ed.
He's listen. He's the He's a fantastic executive. He's strategic. He's run a huge operations, with one which Disney is now investing sixty billion dollars of capital into.
He has great creative instincts.
He has what Bob Iger calls exceptional taste. He's a leader who's operated all the globe, including the recent expansion that's going to happen in the UAE, which he did with Bob. He's the purpose person for this time. So Josh is just a standout executive. We looked all over the world, as you could imagine, we wanted to do this right. We want to make sure that whoever got the job beat all comers and he beat all comers.
So we're through.
Mister Gorman, what mandatory goals performance targets did you set mister Demorrow over the term of his contract.
Well, we haven't set goals in terms of his contract. He hasn't started. He'll be taking over as CEO at the annual meeting, which is March eighteen. Bob will be working with him through twenty twenty six, gaiding and mentoring and.
Helping further develop him.
Obviously, he laid out a vision for the board in the various discussions we had, which we had numerous ones, we really got to know Josh and all the other top executives Dana Walden, Alan Bergman, Jimmy Pittaro, just a tremendous group of four executives we had to consider in this process. And you know, over time we'll work with him as he settles into the job to lay out what the right strategic moves will be and how we're
going to measure ourselves against those. So I'm highly confident in Josh and the team working with him.
Mister Gorman, there was reporting that mister Eiger confided in those close to him that he wanted to leave Disney before the end of his contracted term. To what extent did that that pushed the board to move up its succession timeline.
Yeah, I think firstly, let's just talk about Bob. I mean, he's had effectively two careers at Disney. The first was an amazing fifteen year run where he did deals that
you know, nobody else on the planet could have done. Frankly, he worked with Steve Jobs, with George Lucas, with Rupert Murdoch to buy a bunch of studios which we now oversee seven studios which Alan Bergman has been overseen by the way produced Allen's leadership and working with Dana and has produced over six billion dollar movies in the last two years.
But Bob did a phenomenal job.
When the company got in trouble, and it was before I joined the board, they invited.
Bob to come back. And really there were two mandates for him.
What was to get us through the very difficult post COVID period and the changes taking place in the linear space with what was going on in streaming and now what is going on in AI. He did that. He really got the company fit for purpose. The second was to make sure if we were to go internal that the lead executives, and we had four of them to consider, would be ready for prime time if and.
When we went in that direction. We ultimately did. So. Bob came to us a little while ago and said, they're ready. I mean, Josh is ready. He's ready to take over if the board's will is to move on this.
I want to step aside and I want to work with Josh as a senior advisor, stay on the board through the end of the year. It's not about the length of the contract that he was under. It's about his role as CEO and then as mentor for the next CEO. So hats after Bob. It was very selfless and frankly, it's what's great for the company.
Did you consider Bob Iger continuing on in a co chairman capacity or a chairman emeritus type role.
I appreciate that.
You know there is an advisor agreement here, but does that have a definitive end.
Yeah, Bob, Bob war says, an employee, advisor and board member until the end of twenty twenty six, and then he'll step off the board.
He won't be an employee.
He'll continue to consult to the company consistent with what former executives do. I'm doing that at my former institution, Morgan Stanley. But no, we were not. You know, Bob was not interested in remaining as a chair or co chair. We needed a completely clean start here, which is what we're having. He'll be there to support a mentor and we have the right structure for the future.
So we're thrilled.
And you know, you look at what's going on now that we've appointed Dana also as president and a new role, Chief Creative Officer.
That's to ensure that the leadership team.
At the heart of this company is creativity and storytelling, and it's to ensure the leadership team brings their absolute best every day, leveraging our IP telling stories across all of our properties, whether it's cruises or parks, TV, our ESPN platform, and obviously the studios. So we're really set. We're set for the next decade. I'm very excited about it.
Mister woman.
Ultimately, you went with Josh Tomorrow for the seer role in promoting Dana Walden to the CEO president hybrid role, how conscious were you of keeping her, you know, giving her that title to ensure she stays at Disney long term.
Oh my goodness, if you don't want to keep talented executives, there's something wrong with you. You know, we had an embarrassed and of riches we have. You know, as I said, Jimmy Peto who's run a ESPN as a fabulous executive, Alan Bergman, who's run around studios businesses at seven Studios, has done unbelievable job. Dana obviously incredible executive of the long history in Hollywood, in the industry, and Josh.
We wanted to keep all of them, and I believe we will.
I mean, I think this is a win win for everybody, and I'm just I couldn't be more excited about it. So yeah, absolutely, if you have talent, you want to keep them. Finding talent, developing talent is really hard. So when you got it, you do what you can to retain it.
Well, mister Gormant, it seemed like a four way playoff, right of internal candidates in that vein. How concerned or otherwise were you about keeping Jimmy Pittarro and Alan Bergman at Disney long term two?
Well, it was more than four ways.
We really approached this and when I say we the board, we had a succession Planning Committee, and I was honored to serve with Calvin McDonald, so Jeremy Daryl and Mary Barrow, who were the succession Planning Committee. Then we quickly moved to full board engagement, and each of the other directors played a meaningful role in this, and I couldn't be more grateful.
For what they did.
But you know, we decided early on we wanted to look at all comers. We had a list, my goodness, it must have been over one hundred people initially that we thought about. We considered, we evaluated. We ended up talking to several executives outside the company because I wanted to be sure.
We all wanted to be sure that.
Whoever got this job got it on their merits, they had beaten anything that was presented from the marketplace, and we had the best possible candidate. So that included external, and included internal, and included the four that you talked about, and I think all of them are very important to this company and we're honored to have them in critical.
Roles, mister Gorman.
In May of twenty nineteen, I was sat opposite Bob Chapek at the opening of Star Wars Galaxy's Edge, right and at that time the parks. By February of the following year, he was CEO and it was all about IP, his ability to take the growth in parks, the IP in parks, grow it out. Star Wars is a good case study. But to many, you know, and maybe investors had a viewpoint on this, on a co CEO structure or somebody coming from Parks to lead the wider business.
Josh Damara has a very similar background to mister Jpek. How closely did you look at that those parallels in that scenario.
Not especially we look at the individual. We don't look at you know, just bios whatever. I mean, You've got to look at what the individual has done. Josh is incredibly innovative what he's done in the imagineering space for those creative teams, building the IP into the parks, end of the cruisers. I mean, this is this is not an operations job. This is an operations and a creative job.
It's telling stories that create incredible experience for everybody who goes through those gates or gets on one of the ships. And he is incredibly capable of doing that. So I've always said what you look for in CEOs is not just what they've done that's important, but it's.
What they're capable of doing.
You know, I tell the story I ran Morgan Standing for fourteen years. I'd never been a trader, I'd never been a banker. You know, you take people for what they can do, building on some of the things they've learned in the process. And I you know, I look at Josh as an individual, not as a comparison, and I think he'll be a fabulous CEO.
He has all of the skills to lead Disney for the next ten years.
Mister Gorman, you were brought in as chairman in part to oversee this succession process. It's now over. You've reflected on your time at Morgan Stanley. What's next for you? Do you expect to remain longer term with Disney or are you looking at perhaps a move back into the financial industry or something.
Else suggesting I retire it.
Not at all so, but there is a great deal of interest in what you will do. Maybe you'll let us know.
Let us no, I'm not.
I mean, I work with General Landing, which is an amazing firm in the financial space, but I'm not interested in going back into the world the pure world of finance. I want to help the Walt Disney Company and help Josh and the new leadership team and work with Bob on this transition, and help the board in making sure we deliver what we can.
This company's trading fifteen times earnings. That's nuts.
I mean, honestly, there are very few companies that have this quality of assets, this quality of bones, as I call it, that what we have. There are tremendous motes around the businesses. I'm excited about the prospect of what we can see from Disney over the next several years. So no, I'm very much saying put thank.
You James Gorman, chairman of the Walt Disney Company that today has announced Josh Tomorrow as the next CEO, succeeding Bob Iger in March.
Thank you very much much, Thanks so much,