Disney new CEO Josh D'Amaro was branded 'chief' as far back as high school

By Thomas Buckley

 

In the late 1980s, at the only high school in the Boston suburb of Medfield, Massachusetts, Josh D’Amaro went by the nickname “Chief.” A friend, Kevin Foley, even printed it on the back of D’Amaro’s soccer jersey.

 

“He always had those natural leadership tendencies,” said Foley, who now runs JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s global capital markets business. “There was an element where people would gravitate towards him.” 

 

Four decades later, D’Amaro has regained the title, this time as chief executive officer of Walt Disney Co., where he’ll succeed Bob Iger as only the eighth person to lead the 102-year-old company since its founder’s death.  

 

 

The appointment of the 54-year-old brings a new generation of leadership to the world’s largest entertainment company, whose businesses span beloved films from Cinderella to Toy Story and the Star Wars franchise, theme parks around the world, a growing streaming business and the ESPN sports network. 

 

For D’Amaro, it’s the crowning achievement of a 28-year career at Disney, where he’s earned a reputation for being a turnaround artist whose enthusiasm motivates subordinates. Over that time, he has held leadership roles in finance, business strategy, marketing, creative development and operations. 

 

“We saw a guy who’s resilient, optimistic, strategic, creative, a good storyteller, and absolutely loves Disney,” Chairman James Gorman, who led the search, said in an interview. “He had all the qualities and he is a quality human being.”

 

After the board vote, Gorman and Iger called D’Amaro into an office to share the news with him and give him time to call his family. “He reflected on the great things that are before him and his gratitude in life,” Gorman said. “It was very moving and he showed a lot of humility, a lot of grace, and a lot of respect.”

 

Since 2020, D’Amaro has run the Experiences division — the home of Disney’s theme parks, cruises and consumer products, including video games. He has played a key role in translating Disney’s iconic characters through new, story-driven attractions at the company’s 12 theme parks and 57 resort hotels across six global destinations.

 

Over that stretch, the company has invested heavily in its resorts, boosting the unit’s annual earnings by 48% to $10 billion and making the division the company’s biggest source of profit. The unit reported $36 billion in annual revenue in fiscal 2025 and includes 185,000 cast members and employees worldwide. D’Amaro is currently guiding a $60 billion expansion plan that includes almost doubling the company’s fleet of cruise ships to 13 by 2031 and building new themed lands and attractions. 

 

In 1998, when D’Amaro joined the company, parks accounted for 32% of Disney’s operating income, less than the film and TV businesses. Last year it was 57%. The company has expansion projects underway at every resort, including a new Frozen land in Paris that will nearly double the size of that property.

 

But that growth trajectory faces challenges. In its most recent earnings report, Disney cited “headwinds” in attracting international tourists to its domestic parks this year, along with one-time costs for the Disney Adventure cruise ship and the World of Frozen at Disneyland Paris. 

 

Soaring costs for Disney’s extensive slate of movies and a standoff with YouTube TV led to a 9% drop in total operating income in the fiscal first quarter. And Disney’s share price has lagged the S&P 500 over the past three years as streaming subscriber growth slows and amid a broader selloff of media companies with shrinking traditional television businesses. 

 

While D’Amaro has plenty of experience in some of Disney’s biggest businesses, he has less in media. Viewers continue to shift away from traditional television — once Disney’s most profitable business — spending more time with online services like Netflix and YouTube.

 

Disney’s streaming arm produced $1.3 billion in operating profit last year. But the operating margin for the company’s online entertainment business — Disney+ and Hulu — trails the nearly 30% at market leader Netflix Inc. 

 

To help buttress D’Amaro’s lack of experience in Hollywood and managing creative talent, Disney promoted Dana Walden, co-chair of entertainment and head of TV, to a new role as president and chief creative officer of Disney. She’ll report directly to D’Amaro and will “ensure that storytelling and creative expression” reflect the brand, engage audiences and advance the business, Disney said. 

 

While the entertainment unit has been lapped by parks in profitability, it still brings in more revenue and is the backbone for the beloved characters and stories that rides and toys are based on.

 

D’Amaro’s appointment puts an end to more than a year of fevered speculation in Hollywood and on Wall Street. Disney said it interviewed more than 100 candidates, including Walden, Alan Bergman, the other co-chair of entertainment and head of film, and Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN’s chairman. 

 

After a series of tumultuous CEO handoffs in the past, Disney was determined to make a smooth transition of power this time. Iger had been mentoring internal candidates to succeed him, and Gorman, an outsider and former CEO of Morgan Stanley, has been leading the succession search for more than a year, hoping to avoid the pitfalls of the past. 

 

Tom Staggs, who served as chief financial officer and ran the parks, was elevated to chief operating officer in 2015 and was widely perceived to be in line to succeed Iger. He left a year later and Iger extended his contract.

 

Bob Chapek, another theme park head, was named CEO in 2020. His turbulent tenure ended in less than three years with Iger’s return in November 2022. 

 

Before Disney 

D’Amaro grew up in a family of six. His father was a business executive and his mother was president of the local arts center. At Medfield High, he played the trombone, varsity soccer and basketball, was named best dressed in his graduating class and met his future wife Susan. He and his family now live in a gated community in California’s Orange County. An avid runner and snowboarder, D’Amaro has described himself to colleagues as a political centrist, according to people familiar with his views. 

 

D’Amaro wanted to express himself creatively early on, originally studying sculpture at Skidmore College before transferring to Georgetown University, where he got a degree in business administration. After graduating in 1993, D’Amaro started his career in the finance department of the Gillette razor company in Boston.

 

Five years later, D’Amaro moved to California to work in an operations and strategy role at Disneyland in Anaheim, paving the way for his corporate climb. He took a job in sales and travel operations at the Hong Kong resort, and later held other leadership positions across the company.

 

Before becoming chairman of the parks division, D’Amaro ran Disney’s two flagship locations in the US: Disneyland and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

 

Catherine Powell, who once presided over parks in the US and Paris, worked with D’Amaro when he ran Disneyland in California.

 

“He completely understood what the commercial levers are, where the commercial sensibilities are, how you need to balance creative needs and business needs, and how to make sure you have a real handle on consumer insights,” Powell said.

 

Powell, now the CEO of river cruise operator AmaWaterways, said D’Amaro’s charisma and sense of inclusion inspired teams at Disney.

 

“He’s able to be equally authentic with very high-level executives within the company and key external partners and with the person who’s picking up litter.”

 

In 2010, D’Amaro became the vice president of the money-losing Adventures by Disney in Florida, a unit aimed at affluent travelers seeking guided expeditions in foreign destinations. He helped accelerate demand in that division by embedding more of Disney’s characters into the tours and introducing tiered pricing, which ultimately restored profitability. 

 

D’Amaro was promoted to senior vice president of Walt Disney World in 2014, supervising the opening of a popular Avatar-themed land at Disney’s Animal Kingdom park. He became president of Disneyland in 2018, overseeing the opening of the Star Wars-themed land there, and president of Walt Disney World a year later.

 

In those roles, he built strong ties to executives in Disney’s media business, including Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios, working to bring the superhero characters and attractions to life in the parks. He was promoted to chairman of the experiences division in 2020, when Chapek succeeded Iger as Disney’s CEO. 

 

When the global pandemic closed Disney’s parks, D’Amaro furloughed tens of thousands of workers and oversaw the complicated reopenings, involving various health-care protocols, including a requirement that guests wear masks.

 

The Chapek era included price increases for theme-park tickets that angered some fans, including the introduction of a line-cutting system that jacked up the cost by as much as $25 per ride. When Iger returned, he and D’Amaro took steps to win back guests who felt they were being nickeled-and-dimed, such as removing time limits for hopping between parks and reintroducing free self-parking at Disney’s hotels.

 

D’Amaro also led the $1.5 billion purchase of a minority stake in Epic Games, the publisher of Fortnite, which is building a virtual Disney universe that’s set to be unveiled later this year. Last May, Disney announced the building of its first theme park in the Middle East and the company’s first new resort in a decade: A sprawling property on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. 

 

Among fans and park workers, D’Amaro has become something of a celebrity and is routinely asked for selfies. He has an Instagram page with 172,000 followers, sharing pictures of himself wielding a lightsaber and astride a Tron motorcycle.

 

Marcus Buckingham, a business consultant who’s authored bestselling books on effective management and shadowed company executives including D’Amaro and Iger when they visited Disney’s parks, calls it “The Josh Effect”: A mix of approachability and genuine passion for Disney’s business that makes him popular with staff and customers. 

 

On one recent visit to Disneyland, D’Amaro spent 20 minutes catching up with a security guard who had worked there when D’Amaro ran the park, recalling the guard’s son, Buckingham said. 

 

In July, when Iger and Lynn Martin, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, gathered at Disneyland to celebrate the park’s 70th anniversary, D’Amaro delayed a photo op with the pair – and Mickey and Minnie Mouse – because he was speaking to park visitors at a nearby entrance.  

 

“Disney’s strength has always come from our people and the creative excellence that defines our stories and experiences,” D’Amaro said in the statement Tuesday. “I am excited to work with our teams across the company and brilliant creative partners to honor Disney’s remarkable legacy while continuing to innovate, grow, and deliver exceptional value for our consumers and shareholders.”