Walt Disney on Tuesday named Josh D'Amaro as its CEO, ending years of uncertainty on succession and placing a longtime insider to helm the company.
D'Amaro, 54, will take the reins from Bob Iger, 74, at the company's annual investor meeting on 18 March.
The insider, who is the head of Disney's theme parks, has been set up with a lucrative pay package for his first year too.
How much salary will new Disney CEO get?
According to a report by Fortune, new Walt Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro has been offered a fat pay package for his first year at the role. The top leader will get a total grant-date value of roughly $45 million along with a mandate to steer one of the most well-known and exciting companies in the world.
That is not all.
Disney has fixed D'Amaro's annual base salary at $2.5 million, and he will receive a long-term incentive award with a target value of $26.3 million each fiscal year.
A clean succession
The stunning pay package that Josh D'Amaro will receive is not enough — he will also get something that can prove to be a game changer in the succession game, Bob Iger's planned exit.
Succession has long been the storied entertainment giant's weakness - it delayed Iger's retirement several times and brought him back in 2022 to replace his handpicked successor, Bob Chapek, after the pandemic hobbled its business.
But this time, Iger will step down from the board's strong executive committee after the annual shareholder meeting, with the 74-year-old slated to depart completely at the end of the year.
Iger will transition to an advisory role after D'Amaro is made CEO next month and will continue to be a board member until his retirement from the company on 31 December.
This comes as a big change from the last time Iger stepped down as CEO. At that time, he continued to have a day-to-day role at Walt Disney as its executive chairman and had control over the company’s creative endeavours.
However, this time, Josh D'Amaro will serve as CEO Morgan Stanley veteran James Gorman as the chairman.
Experts cited by Fortune said this structure with D'Amaro as CEO, Gorman as chairman, and Iger exiting his role completely, allows foe a smooth transition and a “clean break”.
“There is always pressure on the new CEO when the old CEO is there to not make any sudden moves, and to carry on the CEO’s legacy,” Fortune quoted board advisor and lawyer Richard Leblanc as saying.
However, when the old CEO moves on, “they exit the company so that the new CEO can find their way and implement change without feeling as though someone is looking over their shoulder,” he said.
With D'Amaro, Disney is turning to a nearly three-decade company veteran who runs its biggest profit engine - the experiences unit that includes theme parks and cruises and whose sales have grown every year after the pandemic receded in 2021.