Disney announced this Sunday that it had appointed Bob Iger as the company’s new CEO, a position that Bob Chapek left in 2020 after 15 years in office.
Iger, 71, agreed to return to lead the North American company for two years, with the aim of establishing a “renewed growth” strategy, Disney said in a statement.
The new CEO will also be tasked with working with the board of directors to find a successor.
The company, founded in 1923, did not specify the reasons for Bob Chapek’s departure.
“We thank Bob Chapek for his service to Disney (…), including guiding the company through the unprecedented challenges of the” Covid-19 pandemic, President Susan Arnold said in the statement.
Bob Chapek took over in early 2020, precisely when the pandemic began. He had to manage the closure of theme parks and cinemas, but also the expansion of the streaming platform.
The results of this activity were recently released, with Disney+ still gaining subscribers in the third quarter, but the Californian group’s streaming platforms (Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu) posted an operating loss of almost $1.5 billion ( 1,460 million euros). ).
Disney’s stock price fell more than 13% the day after these results were announced in early November.
At the head of the company from 2005 to 2020, Bob Iger transformed the entertainment empire, between the acquisitions of the animation studio Pixar, in 2006, Marvel, in 2009, or most of the assets of the former 21st Century Fox group, in 2019. , ending the term with the launch of Disney+.
Source: TSF
