Dana Walden, co-chair of Disney Entertainment
Wealthy Polk | Getty Images
In 1994, a captain of the media and entertainment industry saw something in Dana Walden that made him think she was able to an even bigger role.
Thirty years later, which will occur again.
That first time, the manager was Peter Chernin, then president of twentieth Century Fox Filmed Entertainment and later president and chief operating officer of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Chernin plucked Walden from Fox’s corporate communications division and gave her a job in TV.
In 2024, the manager is Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO, and the position he’s considering Walden for is that of his successor, in accordance with people conversant in the method. The appointment would make Walden the primary female CEO of the Walt Disney Co. in its 100-year history.
Only a yr into her early profession at twentieth Century Fox, working in publicity, Walden delivered a presentation at an organization retreat in Santa Barbara, California. She was determined to go away a long-lasting impression on Chernin, now chairman and CEO of investment firm The Chernin Group, after several encounters during which he’d never remembered her.
To get his attention, Walden decided to be daring. She told Fox executives, including Chernin, that they weren’t being aggressive enough to secure top talent. Fox needed to take larger swings to generate relationships and land shows that might make it to syndication, Walden argued. A spokesperson for Walden confirmed the main points of the presentation.
When the retreat ended, Chernin called Peter Roth, then president of twentieth Century Fox Television, who later ran Warner Bros.’ TV division.
“The subsequent day she was in my office, and we gave her a job in programming,” Roth said in an interview.
That set Walden on a profession course correction that is led her to the doorstep of becoming Iger’s successor.
Peter Chernin
Getty Images for Malaria No More 2013
Walden, co-chair of Disney Entertainment, is competing internally with Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro, and Alan Bergman, who’s Entertainment co-chair with Walden, to be named the following CEO of Disney, said the people familiar, who asked to not be named since the discussions are private.
Iger plans to call a successor after which stick around at Disney to show that person the job before departing at the top of 2026, CNBC reported in September. He’s fighting to take care of control of Disney’s future against a threat from Trian Partners’ Nelson Peltz.
Peltz has argued he should help spearhead a successor search, considering Iger has pushed back his retirement five times and returned to the job after Bob Chapek, named CEO in 2020, was fired in 2022. Peltz has claimed the Disney board cannot be trusted to handle succession. Disney shareholders will vote on Peltz’s candidacy to the board at its annual meeting Wednesday.
Several executives at Disney privately told CNBC they imagine Walden, 59, is the favourite to land the highest job, though they don’t have any inside knowledge of the method, and their proximity to Walden may skew their perception. Her relationship with Iger (she lives just blocks from his house in Brentwood, California), her track record of success as a TV executive, her trust amongst Disney board members, and the symbolism about what it might mean to have a female executive all work in her favor.
“She’s the only best talent exec to come back out of TV within the last 20 years,” Chernin said in an interview.
“She can be an excellent CEO,” Roth added. “Absolutely outstanding.”
Walden declined to comment for this story. Greater than 20 colleagues and friends spoke with CNBC about her strengths, faults and the perceived likelihood she’s going to take over for Iger.
Allies of Walden’s told CNBC she won’t even discuss succession with them (though many said they tease her about it), selecting to give attention to the job of running Disney Entertainment with Bergman that she’s tasked with today.
She faces stiff competition in the opposite Disney division heads. Walden has spent the last three many years focused on producing TV hits. She hasn’t had the identical range of responsibilities as Pitaro, who has run the corporate’s sports media empire since 2018. And she or he has no experience running parks and resorts, which Iger and the board may resolve is more essential to Disney’s future than a TV business with hazy financial prospects within the streaming era.
Six former colleagues — all of whom worked closely with Walden — privately questioned her business acumen in interviews with CNBC.
“There are those that are in creative positions that rise to a level of management who work out what a P&L [profit and loss] statement is, what a balance sheet is, what quarterly earnings are,” said certainly one of the people, who asked to stay anonymous to talk candidly. “Dana doesn’t really hassle with any of that.”
A second former coworker said Walden’s profile simply doesn’t translate to becoming the Disney CEO — a job that involves close investor interaction, geopolitical deals for parks and resorts, and strategic considering around acquisition and investment.
“She’ll be eaten up by real investors,” said the person, who likewise requested anonymity. “Does she have the essential depth of business knowledge? She will learn, but you possibly can’t have someone teach you many years of finance, business and tactics in a yr or two.”
Walden supporters dismissed those concerns as either simply incorrect or an example of persistent stereotypes against female executives. Walden has met with many institutional investors through her years at Disney, in accordance with people conversant in the matter.
“There’s something about taking a look at female execs where questions are asked that might never be asked of men,” said Jennifer Salke, the top of Amazon Studios and a former colleague of Walden’s. “Can they scale? Can a creative person be a business leader? I find that to be an enormous bugaboo. She’s in command of billions of dollars of assets, but she’s not able to being a business leader?”
Jennifer Salke
Stephen Desaulniers | CNBC
Walden defenders brush off criticism from ex-Disney colleagues because the remnants of a grudge against Fox employees who got here over as a part of Disney’s $71 billion acquisition of Fox’s entertainment assets in 2019, or perhaps as a part of an ulterior motive to diminish her CEO prospects in favor of their very own preferred candidates.
“In some unspecified time in the future, everyone running anything was something before that,” Chernin said. “Anybody they select could have never been the Disney CEO prior to that.”
Hollywood ties
Chernin and Walden each began their careers in public relations, making them two of a small club of TV executives who began that way — former HBO head Richard Plepler is one other exception. Chernin saw Walden’s background as a strength, reasonably than a weakness.
“She knows nothing is more essential to a studio than talent relationships,” said Craig Hunegs, who worked closely with Walden when he was president of Disney TV Studios from 2019 to 2021.
Walden’s entire life has ties to Hollywood. She grew up modestly in Studio City, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, and attended the private Westlake School for Girls (a predecessor of the student Harvard-Westlake School), where she became friendly with Carol Burnett’s daughter Carrie Hamilton.
Walden’s parents made connections within the entertainment industry from their time living in Las Vegas, where her mother was a background dancer who performed with George Burns, amongst other artists. Her father became a member of The Friars Club, famous for its Dean Martin celebrity roasts, and established friendships with entertainers including Martin and Buddy Hackett. Walden spent her childhood years with celebrities as family friends, attending dinner parties and sometimes celebrating holidays at their homes. She went on to marry a member of the entertainment industry, producer Matt Walden, in 1995; they’ve two daughters, now of their 20s.
After graduating from the University of Southern California, Walden took a job working for public relations firm Bender, Goldman & Helper, starting out as a receptionist and an assistant. Inside 4 years, she’d turn out to be a vp.
At Bender, she represented “The Arsenio Hall Show” on behalf of her client Paramount. The show poached Walden to come back work as head of selling for Hall’s production company. Lower than a yr later, Lucie Sulhany, president of Paramount Domestic Television, took a job as a high-ranking Fox TV executive. She asked Walden to come back along and work in publicity, and Walden joined her with a watch toward eventually making TV shows.
Dana Walden
Jason Laveris | Filmmagic | Getty Images
Mastering the TV business
At Fox, Walden and fellow TV executive Gary Newman jointly began running the studio business — the engine of the corporate that makes series each for itself and other networks. Starting in 1999, they kept that position for the following 15 years until they were promoted to run all of Fox Broadcasting in 2014.
A former attorney, Newman began his partnership with Walden handling lots of the business issues, while Walden developed a fame for winning over creative talent and having impeccable taste for each dramas and comedies.
“People used to joke we were work spouses,” Newman said in an interview. “She was excellent on the job in a short time. It’s just a mixture of being smart, being really fast, being curious, being fearless.”
Over time, Walden mastered the business side of TV, in accordance with Newman and others who’ve worked along with her.
“The difference between Dana to start with of our partnership, when she leaned on her creative background, and where she was just a few years later was night and day,” Newman said. “She picked up what she needed to select up about business. I had a surgery at one point — the responsibility fell on Dana to be in there for me. That included being in command of the business side of things.”
Newman recounted one difficult negotiation over a Fox-produced show with CBS. It was the day before CBS would announce its fall schedule, and it wasn’t clear if the printed network would pick up the series. CBS gave Newman and Walden a midnight deadline to revise a deal on its terms or it might cancel the show. Walden told Newman that CBS was bluffing, realizing the show was the linchpin for other programming that day. She persuaded Fox to easily ignore the deadline. The subsequent day, CBS included the series, proving Walden right.
“I do not know if she plays poker, but she’d be an excellent poker player,” Newman said.
Dana Walden, Ryan Murphy, Bob Iger, and FX Networks Chairman John Landgraf, from left, attend the premiere of Murphy’s limited series “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” Jan. 23, 2024.
Credit: Disney
Fox’s studio began churning out hits, including “24,” “Homeland,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “Two and a Half Men,” “Modern Family,” “That is Us,” “Recent Girl,” “Bob’s Burgers,” and mini-empires created by Seth MacFarlane (“Family Guy,” “American Dad,” “The Cleveland Show”) and Ryan Murphy (“Nip/Tuck,” “Glee,” “American Horror Story,” “9-1-1”).
Walden began making lasting relationships with TV showrunners and producers who’ve repeatedly worked along with her, including MacFarlane, Murphy, “Modern Family” co-creator Steve Levitan and “That is Us” creator Dan Fogelman. She earned a fame for her creative notes on scripts, particularly on shaping “24,” an unusually constructed drama that ran from 2001 to 2014 and earned critical praise for its storytelling techniques, in accordance with Rick Rosen, a partner and head of TV of the talent agency WME .
“People felt her notes and constructive criticisms helped move that show forward,” recounted Rosen, who represented Howard Gordon, at one time the “24” showrunner. “She helped get it unstuck.”
Walden’s taste, her discipline around getting talent to deliver on budget, and her honesty about what’s working and what is not have set her other than other executives, in accordance with Levitan.
“Hollywood is a business of relationships,” Levitan said. “What you possibly can’t teach any person is tips on how to encourage people. She is whip smart. If there’s a subject that she must take a deep dive on, she’s going to be an authority in that subject before you realize it.”
Joining Disney
Disney’s acquisition of Fox moved Walden to a latest company with a latest culture. Iger called Walden on the day of the deal’s announcement in December 2017 to let her know he wanted her to come back to Disney, in accordance with people conversant in the matter. Newman planned to remain at Fox; he ultimately exited the corporate in 2018.
Walden hoped she’d run Disney’s TV unit as a direct report back to Iger, in accordance with people conversant in her considering on the time. But Iger wanted Peter Rice, Walden’s boss at Fox, for the highest job. Omitted, Walden considered walking away from each Disney and the studio she helped construct for other opportunities, the people said.
Still, she had a robust relationship with Rice, who ultimately persuaded her to remain despite her disappointment. Walden eventually took Rice’s job when Disney fired him in 2022 after Chapek and a few members of the Disney board concluded he wasn’t a team player, specifically noting that he’d privately criticized the corporate’s messaging around Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” laws, in accordance with people conversant in the matter. Chapek told Rice he wasn’t a culture fit despite years of Rice receiving positive feedback, the people said. A Disney spokesman and Rice declined to comment.
“The conversations around selling a series — licensing fees, profit participation, residuals — or discussions about budgets, and what number of guest stars we will sign, or which platform a series should air on … all of that I’ve done directly with Dana,” said Wealthy Appel, the manager producer and co-showrunner of “Family Guy.” “No disrespect to Gary [Newman], but for the past few years, it’s only been Dana.”
At Disney, Walden has hit several home runs, including FX’s “The Bear,” Hulu’s “The Dropout” and “Only Murders within the Constructing,” and ABC’s “Abbott Elementary.” She has heavily invested in marketing kid’s show “Bluey,” which in 2024 has hung out as the most-watched show on all streaming services. She has also focused on increase Disney+’s family programming with originals including “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” “Spidey and His Amazing Friends” and “Goosebumps.”
Still, critics say it is easy to cherry-pick the successes and ignore the failures. One Disney insider said that grading Walden’s performance truthfully would require a strong evaluation of all of the shows she’s greenlit.
The anti-Chapek
The last time Iger selected a successor, it didn’t go well. As outlined by CNBC in 2023, the connection between Chapek and Iger, who remained Disney’s executive chairman until the top of 2021, fell apart, and the Disney board ultimately fired Chapek and brought Iger back lower than three years later.
Iger returned as CEO partly to right the unsuitable he believed he made by choosing Chapek as his successor, in accordance with people conversant in his considering. If he’s in search of the anti-Chapek candidate, Walden matches the outline.
Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek
CNBC
Chapek climbed the company ladder at Disney for 30 years by showcasing his business and finance chops. He studied microbiology at Indiana University and got his MBA from Michigan State University. He developed expertise within the minute details of Disney’s parks and resorts, reminiscent of how specific hotel discounts could affect park attendance and the worth elasticity of seasonal ticket rate adjustments.
But he had almost no Hollywood relationships. With out a foundation of trust, “The Town,” as Hollywood is understood, turned on Chapek. Agents, producers and showrunners blamed him for Disney’s forceful public rebuke of A-list star Scarlett Johansson in a Covid pandemic-related contract dispute and for bungling the corporate’s response to “Don’t Say Gay,” as CNBC reported in 2023.
Walden’s resume sets her up as Chapek’s inverse: a Disney outsider whose Hollywood ties are amongst the most effective within the industry. Within the latter months of Chapek’s tenure as CEO, as CNBC reported, Disney communications head Kristina Schake began organising meetings for Chapek with Hollywood’s power players — at Walden’s house.
A possible handover from Iger to Walden would also look very different from the Iger-Chapek transition, predicted United Talent Agency Vice Chairman Jay Sures, a detailed friend of Walden’s. Chapek saw Iger as a threat to his power, in accordance with people conversant in his considering on the time. Walden would stay near Iger for so long as possible, Sures said.
“When Bob Chapek got the job, he couldn’t wait for Bob Iger to go away. If Dana ever got the job, she’s gonna dread the day Bob Iger leaves,” Sures said. “She values the skill and leadership he brings. She knows an excellent thing when she sees it.”
Combating female stereotypes
If Walden were appointed CEO, she can be the primary woman to run the century-old company. Some near Iger say he would look fondly on being the person to assist break the glass ceiling.
Amazon’s Salke said she’s had several discussions through the years with Walden about tips on how to survive within the male-dominated entertainment world. It requires a deftness of character and skill to avoid enemies, said Salke.
“I watched ‘Barbie,'” said Salke, referencing the Greta Gerwig-created hit 2023 movie that skewers elements of recent patriarchy. “That speech from America Ferrera’s character [Gloria], it’s true. You may have to be likable but not too likable. Should you’re too likable, that is seen as threatening to men.”
While Walden has crossed a bridge to turn out to be close friends with a variety of her skilled colleagues (she’s the godmother of Murphy’s children), she is attuned to her image in ways male executives do not have to fret about, in accordance with people conversant in her personality.
Even when the eye is nonthreatening, Walden is aware that her appearance could also be judged as readily as her business performance, the people said.
“After I first met her, the writers would see Dana walk by infrequently, and we used to call her ‘Why Miss Jones,'” Levitan said. “Because she’d wear these glasses. So it was like in old Hollywood movies, when an actress would take off her glasses and certainly one of the characters would say, ‘Why, Miss Jones! You are beautiful!'”
Levitan later became close friends with Walden and praised her professionalism. Of note, he cited last yr’s cancellation of “Reboot,” a show he created for Hulu.
“I do not agree with the choice that was made there, and I do not agree that it got a good shake,” Levitan said. “But Dana and I talked about it. She took me through her reasons. And it’s a real conversation. There is a reason persons are pretty effusive concerning the way Dana handles herself. It’s because she genuinely goes out of her technique to treat individuals with decency.”
Steve Levitan
Peter “Hopper” Stone | Getty Images
Walden and her team have a fame for sending birthday gifts to Hollywood’s movers and shakers and bottles of champagne to them when their shows premiere. Supporters view it as relationship-building. Critics said her actions sometimes border on corporate largesse.
Walden herself has joked that she was “raised by wolves” at Fox, and that she’s needed to consciously adjust to the more toned-down Disney culture over the past five years, in accordance with people conversant in her considering.
She’s also needed to toe a line between stereotype and successful executive. Of the 20 people interviewed for this story, nearly every certainly one of them called Walden “direct” and “demanding.”
“Sharp elbows, right?” Salke said, anticipating the hackneyed criticism of female leaders. “So persistently Dana and I actually have been the one women within the room. Can she be demanding and hold people to a high bar? Yes. But men come on in, and the very first thing they do is fire people, and nobody bats a watch.”
Walden’s champions noted that each successful executive is demanding of excellence, and said her directness is a significant strength that separates her from many other TV executives.
“She might be ‘business’ tough,” said WME’s Rosen. “No one likes to deliver bad news. A show is canceled, or it’s over budget, or this project didn’t work. But she’s not harsh. You are feeling like she’s coming from a spot of optimism — let’s work out where we go from here.”
The ultimate pick
While the Disney board could have the final word say on the corporate’s next CEO, Iger will likely be the actual decision-maker, given his history at the corporate, status amongst board members, and knowledge of the job.
“The importance of the succession process can’t be overstated, and because the Board continues to judge a highly qualified slate of internal and external candidates, I remain intensely focused on a successful transition,” Iger said in an announcement in 2023 when he renewed his contract as CEO to the top of 2026.
Even when Iger agrees with a few of Walden’s critics about whether her strengths will specifically fit the highest job at Disney, it’s possible his recollection of his own experience being chosen as CEO in 2005 could influence his decision.Â
“Return and have a look at the articles that were written about Bob Iger,” Sures said. “I used to be friends with Bob then. It was a number of ’empty suit’ — a good-looking, tall guy who never had any experience within the movie business and never did anything in M&A [mergers and acquisitions] before in his life. Nineteen years later, he’s certainly one of the best, if not the best CEO the entertainment business has ever seen.”
“The identical things are being said about Dana now,” Sures said.
Iger and the board’s selection for a successor may ultimately come right down to the direction they envision for Disney.
D’Amaro could possibly be the alternative in the event that they resolve the parks are crucial a part of the corporate’s future. Pitaro seems logical if ESPN and its upcoming digital transformation are seen as a necessary a part of Disney’s future, versus its past. Either Walden or Bergman could possibly be the alternative if creative taste and relationships trump all, though Bergman’s recent troubles with Disney’s film division could also be a knock against them.
Still, Chernin said it is a mistake to view Disney so simply. The magic of the corporate is how all of the parts interact with one another, reasonably than emphasizing one unit over all others, he said.
“The business is changing so rapidly. That company goes to alter a lot,” Chernin said. “Someone goes to need to imagine what a media company of the long run looks like. Bob [Iger] goes through that at once. He’s actively spending every single day considering that through. An important a part of that company is ongoing relationships with customers.”
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