Bob Chapek Out as CEO - Not An Apple Moment

About a year ago I wrote a post pondering if the criticisms about Disney CEO Bob Chapek were ones that come with a changing of the guard; like Apple experienced after Tim Cook took the helm.  

Turns out, this isn’t the case.  Many were calling for him to be fired … and that time has come.

The impression that Bob Iger left on the Walt Disney Company looms large and the early mistakes that Chapek had made as CEO made it even more difficult for him to forge his own way.  Variety writes a little more in depth about this: Bob Chapek‘s Early Blunders Made It Hard to Escape Bob Iger’s Shadow at Disney

But Bob Chapek was clearly creating some distance between the company and its customers, shareholders, cast members, and talent.   The complaints mounted and started to speak volumes.  In regards to a bad fit for an executive role, Michael Eisner summed it up best in his 1998 book A Work in Progress: “Disney wasn’t mired in the usual corporate politics.  This was a full-blown crisis, and it was tearing the company apart.^[1]” Ultimately, to put the company on the proper path, that person wound up leaving.  History seems to be repeating itself. 

Disney Stock Price on November 9, 2022 - the day after 3Q earnings report

I have to admit, I was really rooting for the guy to succeed. Bob Iger can’t stay in the role forever and the company needs a good steward and it would be a shame to see the company follow the path of General Electric.  Disney doesn’t have a smoothest of track records when it comes to leadership succession and it would have been nice to see a smooth(ish) passing of the torch. In 1984, Walt’s son-in-law Ron Miller was fired^[2] after a brief tenure as CEO and and Michael Eisner was brought in. Eisner himself was asked to step down in 2004^[3]with then President and COO, Bob Iger, eventually succeeding him.  Now Disney has another one for the books.

With Bob Chapek out Bob Iger has returned to right the ship and find a successor yet again. I suppose time will tell if Disney can break the chain of rough successions and who will carry that torch. 

References:

[1] Michael Eisner and Tony Schwartz, Work in Progress . (New York: Random House, 1998), 388

[2] Hayes Thomas C. (Sept 8, 1984). "Disney Chief is Forced Out" NyTimes.com.  Accessed Nov 21, 2022

[3] Verrier, Richard (Sept 11, 2004) "Disney's Eisner Will Step Down" orlandosentinel.com. Accessed Nov 21, 2022