Highlights
- Josh D'Amaro officially becomes Disney CEO at Wednesday's annual shareholder meeting.
- D'Amaro faces challenges including AI disruption, declining TV and box office fatigue for Marvel and Star Wars.
- Bob Iger will stay on Disney's board until the end of the year before retiring for the second time.
Investors want to know how D'Amaro plans to deal with the rise of AI which is changing the way people watch and pay for entertainment.
He also has to worry about the Middle East conflict and rising oil prices which could put people off travelling to Disney's theme parks.
On top of that he faces tough competition from YouTube and TikTok which are taking up more and more of people's time.
Big challenges ahead
D'Amaro walks into a company with a lot of problems to fix. Disney's TV business is getting smaller, films from big brands like Marvel and Star Wars are not doing as well at the box office as they used to and the entertainment market is more crowded than ever.
People are also remembering what happened last time Disney promoted a theme parks boss to run the whole company.
Bob Chapek lasted only a short time in the job before things went so badly that Iger had to come back in November 2022.
Analyst Doug Creutz said D'Amaro and Walden working well together would be key saying it would be "critical for the two executives to be able to forge a strong partnership."
When Iger came back in 2022 Disney's share price had fallen more than 40 per cent in just one year.
He managed to turn things around getting the streaming service into profit delivering five films that each made over $1 bn at the box office and kicking off a $60 bn plan to improve theme parks and cruise ships.
But his overall record on returns for investors was not great with Disney delivering just 11 per cent compared to 77 per cent for the wider S&P 500 market.
Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich told Reuters ,she was waiting to hear D'Amaro's plans. "If he could at least articulate a growth strategy that would be super helpful," she said.
