Disney Succession: Follow the Bouncing Gorman!
Unpacking the twist in Hollywood's longest-running soap opera, and takeaways from the NEW board chair's last search for a CEO
Like the sands of time through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives . . .
On the last episode of The Bob Chronicles: With no front-runner emerging, thunder struck as a committee was appointed and charged with finding . . .
A Successor!!
Thunderclap sounds! Lighting flashes through the board room as Bob looks away in agony . . .
Fade To Black.
I kind of can’t believe I’m writing about this yet again. In two weeks, we’re going to elect a President and leader of the free world in about one-one-thousandth of the time we’ve spent debating who should be the next leader of the Walt Disney Company.
Just when you thought you understood the process, tortured as it may be . . .
Thunderclap sounds!
The brilliance of Disney Comms . . . that a story about postponing the naming of Iger’s successor becomes yet another story about . . . naming Iger’s successor! You know, just a little later!
Brexit didn’t get this much debate. The Manhattan Project was several times shorter than the hunt for Bob Iger’s replacement.
I’m at the point where you just want to say to Bob and everyone involved: Are you folks alright there? If you want Bob to stay on in the job, really that’s fine. Just come out and say it.
And if you want to pick a successor . . . you’re not auditioning for someone to dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench without oxygen and singlehandedly reactivate a lost Nazi sub. Bob Iger is an executive — a good, even a great one — but he’s just a guy who runs the office. There were CEOs before him, there will be CEOs after him. If one of them doesn’t work out . . . you can get another business person.
So for crying out loud what exactly is going on here?
There are things to know about James Gorman that I will highlight below that, well, some people in Hollywood might not love (and others might be just fine with), and what that might mean for the internal candidates.
But first, here’s some stabs at the current motivations of Bob Iger, ranked: