Very happy to see Chapek removed.
While much of todays Disney poor performance was amplified by his decisions, it is the result of much longer poor planning. The parks are underinvested in maintenance, service and capacity…and no magical mixture of apps/technology can paper over it. The demand is vastly more than supply. The current strategy is like the Federal Reserve…. Destroy demand (and capture revenue) by simply raising prices. If they provided a great experience at a higher price, it would maybe be more reasonable. But it’s a worse experience at gouging prices, all the while trying to gaslight you into believing it’s great.
As for the real failure here…it lies with Iger and the board. They spent a decade building a succession plan for Iger. And they chased out a lot of executives….for Chapek? There was nothing he did as CEO that wasn’t known about him. Executives like that don’t change as CEO. so now we have two years for them to find the next one? I have little confidence it will have a different outcome with the same people involved.
So what does Iger do? Look for a massive acquisition. It’s the Hail Mary for execs. ‘Buy something’ to throw dust in the air and give them another pool of execs to comb thru and try to find someone they can anoint.
if I were Iger, I’d change the structure. “Disney” needs a Chief creative Officer. Someone that reports to the board. Almost at the ceo level but not. Someone responsible for experience and vision. Then a ceo that executes. Highly unorthodox but disney isn’t like other companies.
