Leadership1 publisher3 min readPublished
Bob Chapek says Disney's board sided with a predecessor who wanted his job back
Bob Chapek, fired as Disney CEO after less than three years, says he would turn the job down if offered again. He blames a board that brought back Bob Iger, who now sits on it while Josh D'Amaro runs the company.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
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What happened
- Chapek says he fell victim to a plot by Iger, his predecessor and later his replacement, to undermine him from the start of his tenure.
- Disney's board removed Chapek in late 2022 after the streaming business lost nearly $1.5 billion in one quarter and shares fell back to pandemic lows.
- D'Amaro, CEO since March, ran Disney's Experiences division before taking the top job, the same route Chapek took.
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Why it matters
- contradiction Chapek blames how fast the board acted after the handoff, while Iger blames the search before it, so both accounts point back at the board without agreeing on what it got wrong.
- exposure D'Amaro's early results will be judged by a board that includes a former CEO who has already come back once to replace a successor.
- decision Boards planning a handoff have to decide how close the departing chief stays, because a former CEO within reach gives directors a ready fallback and makes firing the successor easier.
Chapek and Iger now give competing explanations for the same failed handoff, and they put the fault at opposite ends of it. Chapek blames the exit: the board "had a very quick trigger," he told Business Insider [3]. Iger blames the entry. Speaking to Harvard Business Review about the search that chose Chapek, he said Disney "thought we knew the person extremely well" [12]. Disney did not respond to Business Insider's requests for comment, and Iger has not publicly answered Chapek's criticisms [11].
The idea that a predecessor who stayed close sank the handoff comes almost entirely from Chapek, who describes a plot by his former boss to undermine him from the start [4]. The Business Insider account does not describe what role, if any, Iger held at Disney between handing over in February 2020 and returning in November 2022 [2]. It does report the outcome. The board dismissed Chapek in late 2022 and reinstated Iger [9]. Chapek had held the job for less than three years [1].
A skeptic would say the board needed no push from anyone. Under Chapek, shares rose from a pandemic low of $79 to $197 in March 2021, a gain of about 149% [6][2]. Disney+ passed 150 million subscribers in under three years, and Chapek set a goal of 230 million to 260 million by the end of 2024 [7]. The streaming losses and the slide back to pandemic lows came after that [8]. His tenure also included public fights with Scarlett Johansson and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis [18]. Business Insider writes that Chapek's book rollout has involved "a whole lot of Iger bashing and far less soul-searching" [5].
Both can be true. A board can fire a CEO on results and still find the decision easier because a known alternative is willing to come back. In my view, keeping a former chief within reach gives a board a fallback, and it costs the successor some of the patience a board shows when it has no easy second option. Chapek puts it more bluntly: the board "sided with a guy who wanted his job back," he said [3].
Iger now sits on the board that oversees Josh D'Amaro [10][14]. Chapek said D'Amaro "was appropriate to be promoted to CEO," then added that he had promoted him "myself about a half dozen times" [15]. Disney has made three waves of layoffs under D'Amaro, and Chapek said "it's interesting that all these tough calls are being made after Bob left" [16].
D'Amaro inherits a stock that rose about 13% over the past ten years while the S&P 500 rose 255%, a gap of about 242 percentage points [17][3]. Chapek said D'Amaro must "develop a healthy, vibrant, long-term growth vehicle," without saying what that could be [19]. Iger said leadership "needs to be capable of managing an environment in perpetual crisis" [12]. This quarter, Disney's board has to decide how long D'Amaro's cuts get before it judges them. The board making that call has already replaced one successor with the man he succeeded [9][10].
What to watch
- Whether Iger or Disney's board answers Chapek's account of a plot and a quick trigger, now that the book is out.
- Whether more detail comes out about Iger's role between February 2020 and November 2022, the main test of Chapek's claim that he was undermined from the start.
- How Disney's board responds to D'Amaro's results after three rounds of layoffs, with Iger still a director.