Who is Josh D'Amaro and Why is He Disney's New CEO?

In February 2020, Disney CEO Bob Iger finally announced his successor: Bob Chapek, who ran the company’s parks business. That didn’t work out.Now Iger is running it back: This time around he’s announced that Josh D’Amaro, who runs the company’s park business, is going to succeed him.So: Who is Josh D’Amaro, and what has he done to prove himself CEO-worthy? Why does Iger (and the Disney board) think this one will work? And what happens to all the Disney businesses D’Amaro doesn’t have any background in - you know, the movies and TV shows you think about when you think of Disney?We have an excellent guest to walk us through all of this: Puck’s Julia Alexander, who has been covering Disney for years — and also worked there for a year doing strategy stuff.Julia’s argument in a nutshell: Disney doesn’t know what’s going to happen to the business of making things like movies and TV shows. But it knows people are going to keep coming to its parks and cruises, so it hired the guy that knows that business. Is that the right call? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can listen to Who is Josh D'Amaro and Why is He Disney's New CEO? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Who is Josh D'Amaro and Why is He Disney's New CEO? is an episode from Recode Media with Peter Kafka by Vox Media Podcast Network.

This episode is 38:41 long.

This episode was published on Feb 3, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Recode Media with Peter Kafka when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.