On February 3rd, 2026, The Walt Disney Company named Josh D’Amaro as the new Chief Executive Officer of the company. For those keen observers, the current Disney Parks chief was the obvious candidate and offered little surprise to those who track the company’s strategic manoeuvres with any degree of scrutiny.. Since Bob Iger returned to the company in late 2022, the question was laser-focused on how the company avoids another Bob Chapek situation. In early 2023 Disney created the succession planning committee and this was taken up a notch in August 2024 when Disney named James Gorman as its chair. Gorman possesses a distinguished pedigree in corporate succession, having chaired a similar transition at Morgan Stanley..
The result of the search was Josh D’Amaro becoming Chief Executive Officer, and Dana Walden (Current Co-Chairman of Disney Entertainment – primarily responsible for television) to the position of President and Chief Creative Officer. D’Amaro is popular with fans as being a passionate advocate for the Disney brand, and is somebody who is very visible inside the parks, how he transitions to leading the whole company will be something that will be watched with keen interest.
A 28 year rise through the company
Josh D’Amaro’s ascent through the company is that of somebody who has mastered the art of commercial and operational machinery of the Disney ecosystem. Josh joined the company in 1998 working at the Disneyland Resort and held positions in that early period such as Vice President of Sales and Travel Trade Marketing, and Chief Financial Officer of Disney Consumer Products Global Marketing.
In 2010 he joined Hong Kong Disneyland as resort Vice President. When he joined, the destination had reached a critical juncture following a period of operational turbulence and fiscal stagnation. D’Amaro wanted to work to set the resort up for future success. In an interview with the Corporate Competitor Podcast, he recalls:
Standing in front of a group of marketing and sales executives, he [Josh] told them what they were going to do, which was to “adjust, build and set ourselves up for the future”. Then all the executives went out and did exactly what D’Amaro had told them to.
And none of it worked.
When he pulled the executive team back together again to learn what had gone wrong, he received a swift reply. “These executives said, ‘you told us what to do. You never asked us what to do”.
Josh recounts that this approach changed how he viewed leadership and went from more of a person with answers, to a person that posed questions. He asked people’s point of view, and realised that they know the day to day operations better than he did. This is an approach we have recently heard Bruce Vaughn recently say that Walt Disney Imagineering is taking with local teams– potentially this comes directly from Josh’s experience in Hong Kong.
From Hong Kong, Josh moved to Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 2013 to act as the park’s Vice President. His mandate was to transform the park from its reputation as a half-day park to a place that guests would spend a full day enjoying. Most significantly this involved the opening on Pandora: The World of Avatar and entering nighttime operations with shows such as Rivers of Light. As part of this transition Josh worked closely with Dr. Jackie Ogden (VP Animals, Science, and Environment) to understand how to balance the need to push Disney IP and expand the daytime experience with the needs and desires of the company to operate the park for the full day with the needs of the park operating as scientific and ethical needs of a Zoo.
From Animal Kingdom, Josh enjoyed more roles at the Walt Disney World resort including Senior Vice President, Resort & Transport Operations – basically looking after the whole transport network within Walt Disney World and preliminary work on the Disney Skyliner – and in 2017 became Chief Creative Officer for the Walt Disney World resort. Josh left Walt Disney World in 2018 being fluent in both the storytelling of Disney, and the operations of running a complex logistical operation.
Resort Presidencies
In 2018, Josh became President of the Disneyland Resort – the place where his Disney career began twenty years earlier. It was here that his public persona really boosted into the next year launching Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, but perhaps more importantly positioning himself as one of the faces of the resort – he would post on social media, take selfies with guests and fans in the park – but more than that, he used his position in the company to start telling stories.
Josh describes the leadership approach he took at the resort as “The three C’s – Cast, Community, Commercial Success”. He realised that in order to achieve guest satisfaction, you need to start with cast morale, part of this was deconstructing the barriers to the company executives – D’Amaro would frequently walk through the parks alone, approachable to any cast member who wished to have a dialogue with leadership. During the first few months of his time at the Disneyland Resort he concluded a major labour agreement – at its time raising new industry standards in the Orange County area.
He repaired community relations by taking the surprising step of writing to Anaheim City leaders asking to terminate two of Disney’s major tax incentives. Josh realised that these tax incentives were actually sowing discord within Disneyland’s local community amongst claims that Disney was exploiting the city’s tax base. By walking away from the agreement, Disney cleaned the slate and had a new beginning of community relations which eventually resulted in the Disneyland Forward proposal being approved in 2025.
In 2019 Josh was moved to become President of the Walt Disney World Resort, a move that many at the time saw as a precursor to climbing the ranks to head the Parks division in the future. During his six-month tenure at President, Josh continued to advocate for Cast Members as part of this inverted corporate pyramid and worked on improving their lives:
“We could spend billions of dollars on a new land or attraction, but you need to be putting that money back into the [common areas] or the break rooms to make sure they are equipped to feel good. To me it’s a sign of respect to make people feel good about their surroundings”.
Josh’s tenure of Walt Disney World saw the completion of delivery on major projects including Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. His tenure was most impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic which saw the parks close for a period of time. D’Amaro quickly pivoted into using this closure to benefit the community and donated much of the excess food to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida. Early in the outset of the pandemic, Bob Iger suddenly announced his departure from the position of Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company, promoting Park’s chief Bob Chapek to the head role. Josh D’Amaro was swiftly promoted to Chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products division of the company (which would later be renamed to Disney Experiences).
Turbocharging: D’Amaro takes the Disney Parks Leader role
Josh’s fast acceleration up the ranks in the Disney Parks space was a clear vindication of his leadership approach, it endorsed his operational resilience, and stewardship of the brand during a very difficult time in the company’s history. Josh believes, and restates often, that “stories are at the heart of everything we do”. The core value of his tenure was to realign the division as a story-first division and working to create emotional bond with guests.
In 2024, D’Amaro took to the stage at the Inbound conference in Boston and detailed Disney’s approach to their guiding principles:
Emotional Connections: Josh goes back to the Walt Disney quote about not making films for kids, he wants to speak to the child in all of us. The anecdote about the emotional connection to Peter Pan’s Flight has led him to the position he’s in, Josh believes that storytelling can do that for a person and that the reason they return to Disney is because it is a brand they trust.
Innovation: Disney is curious about where technology and stories can go. He praises imagineers ability to continually want to move forward, bringing guests more deeper into the immersion of their favourite stories.
Relatability: Josh believes that audiences need to see themselves in Disney stories, or at least who they aspire to be. Characters become real to audiences by relating to audiences.
Attention to detail: One small thing can break the illusion of reality. If just one thing is out of place, you stop believing that the land and environment that you are in is real. Disney needs to pay close attention and make sure that everything is perfect. The integrity of the story is crucial.
Courage: Imagineers take big swings at big ideas – even if they’re not sure how to actually land the project. The imagineers started with the story they wanted to tell, then got the courage to pitch a crazy idea and then got it green-lit. Having the courage to try something different is essential.
Boundless Thinking: Josh mentions that being a steward of Disney and its history is an honour, but also that Walt Disney was a forward thinker and that Disney need to continue to be that way. The company needs to think about the future and where it should go, without the shackles of history.
Take a watch of this talk, I think it’s really key to understand Josh D’Amaro and what we might expect to see during his CEO tenure.
In 2021, D’Amaro modified the Disney Keys for the first time in over 60 years. The addition of the inclusion key (adding to Safety, Courtesy, Show and Efficiency) allowed Cast Members to become more individual in the way they expressed themselves – it was seen as not a rejection of tradition but a way of the company becoming more relatable, guests seeing themselves projected from Disney Cast Members.
He coined the term “turbocharging” to describe the aggressive expansion of the division, a division that came out of the Chapek years with a negative outlook amongst fans and guests and in which projects would be announced, but never realised. In fact during the 2024 D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event presentation, Josh directly responded to the disappointment of prior years by saying that “Everything you hear today is actually happening” – and so far, he’s spot-on.
It’s positive news financially too, in fiscal year 2025 the division was contributing $10 billion in annual operating income, and in Q1 Fiscal Year 2026, the division hit revenue of over $10 billion for the first time ever – the Experiences division is currently contributing over 57% of the company’s operating profit.
Of course, for some it’s not all good news. D’Amaro’s tenure as head of the Disney Experiences division has seen the introduction of paid Lightning Lanes, replacing the old free FastPass model as well as the removal of some complimentary services such as Disney’s Magical Express. The company claims that these paid services are not compulsory to having a good day at the theme parks, but Disney also attribute some of the Experiences division revenue growth to these new services – and these services do consistently raise in price.
More recently, Disney invested $1.5 billion into Epic Games and Fortnite to create a persistent universe. Josh describes this as a new space for Disney to meet guests and customers in places that they are already inhabiting. The potential for a virtual Disney Park style experience could be key to Disney’s online future.
Josh’s CEO era: Cause for optimism?
In that Inbound presentation from 2024, Josh recalls a story of sitting outside Walt’s Apartment in Disneyland – he’d just taken the job and was talking about what it takes to run that resort. He mentioned that at that moment, he felt the weight of responsibility that fell on his shoulders and how Disney fans are passionate and how they hold the company to high standards. It’s difficult to imagine that as he takes on this new role, he’s not feeling that right now.
Josh D’Amaro has been impressive, and many fans will probably admit that this move felt inevitable, he manages to strike the same tone as a Michael Eisner did when he became the face of the company taking that “Uncle Walt” role. This is a space that Josh can quite easily inhabit and spread good will and increase his personal brand.
There will, of course, be questions as to how bedded in the Parks structure he is and how he balances that with his new responsibilities looking over linear television, ESPN, Theatrical and all the other pots that The Walt Disney Company has. It’s hard to also completely look over the shadow of Bob Chapek and what happened the last time the “parks guy” got the keys to the castle – although there is a fundamental difference between Josh D’Amaro and Bob Chapek’s approach to managing even the division.
I think fans should be cautiously optimistic about the future, and his Chief Creative Officer and President – Dana Walden – will equally help him out in navigating those unknown areas.
Josh D’Amaro & Dana Walden take up their roles at The Walt Disney Company Annual General Meeting on March 18, 2026. Bob Iger will, at that point, retire from the CEO position but retains his seat on the board and an advisory role until December 31, 2026.
