The magic kingdom has a new king.
D'Amaro has been at Disney for 28 years, starting at Disneyland in 1998. He became chairman of Disney Experiences in 2020 and since then has run a business with $36 billion in annual revenue, 12 theme parks, 57 resort hotels, and a cruise fleet that's doubling in size by 2031. He's also greenlit a new park in Abu Dhabi.
In 2023, he committed to a $60 billion parks investment over 10 years — the most ambitious expansion in the division's history. Disney's parks business has been the company's most reliable profit engine throughout the streaming wars, and D'Amaro built it into that position.
He's also unusually popular. Variety reported he "is constantly accosted by guests who want to hug him and take pictures with him" at Disneyland, and that he's obsessed with operational details down to the color of trash cans.
The last person who ran Disney's parks and then got promoted to CEO was Bob Chapek. That didn't go well. Chapek lasted less than three years and was ousted in 2022 amid declining morale and a high-profile political fight with Florida that damaged the company's brand.
Disney's board appears to have learned from that. Walden's appointment as chief creative officer — a newly created role — pairs D'Amaro's operational strength with someone who spent decades in Hollywood running ABC and Hulu's content operations. TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz called the pairing critical: the two will need to forge a strong working partnership to make it work.
D'Amaro takes over a company with profitable streaming, a $17.5 billion annual profit base, and five films topping $1 billion at the global box office over the past two years. He also inherits a TV business in decline, Marvel and Star Wars showing box office fatigue, and growing uncertainty about what the AI era does to content economics.
Iger will stay on as a senior advisor and board member through December 31.