It Was Igertha All Along
On February 25, 2020, Bob Iger held a surprise press conference. There was a new CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Standing beside Iger was a shaven-headed man with no charisma. Everybody who watched that press conference could tell there was something way off about Iger. Chapek could see it too, as reporters shifted their attention to him, fifteen years of watching The Boss’s body language told him that Bob Iger was becoming angry.
Back in 2015, at the Burbank campus of the Walt Disney Company, Iger knocks on the door of one of his senior executives before walking in.
With little preamble, he asks a question of the office’s occupant that everyone in the company and for that matter the business press is dying to know the answer to, “Who do you think it should be, Jay Rasulo or Tom Staggs?”
“If you want my honest opinion, neither,” Bob Chapek replied. It was the usual passive-aggressive Disney answer that didn’t tie him down to meaning anything… Other than Chapek was implying he was a better choice for the job of CEO than the two front runners.
Iger smiled and said, “I thought you’d say that before leaving. Chapek was very pleased with this encounter. Iger had basically told him he had been in the running. Since most CEO were only around for 5 years or so, he might yet get to the top of the greasy pole.
Iger chose Tom Staggs basically forcing Jay Rosulu out of the company while Tom became the President, COO, and crown prince of the Walt Disney Company. He Staggs took up his duties and began getting one-on-one interviews with the members of the Disney board of directors. Chapek was promoted to Chairman of Parks and Experiences.
The problem was that Ike Perlmutter favored another candidate and allegedly knee-capped Tom Staggs with the BOD. With no hope of advancement, Staggs committed corporate seppuku and resigned from the company.
Chapek was back in the mix for the top slot.
It needs to be said, Chapek was never viewed by anyone outside the company as a frontrunner. Or within the company come to that. Everyone knew the smart money was on handsome, strong, comparatively young, and lantern-jawed Kevin Meyer. Meyer definitely had CEO energy, you could see him being the head honcho of a multi-national mega-corporation like Disney. He was very tech-savvy and had his finger on the pulse of social media.
Chapek on the other hand looked like a middle-manager who had been over-promoted due to the Peter Principle. No one took him seriously for the top slot except for the one man who really counted.
Bob Iger was always telling everyone to call him “Bob,” It was a break from his predecessor whom no one dared call “Mike.” It was either Michael, Mister Eisener, or Sir. Chapek was always very careful to call Iger, “Boss.”
This subservient attitude rather pleased “The Boss.” It was just the sort of thing he was looking for in a successor.
In 2019, he informed the board he had a new anointed one. Susan Arnold’s reaction was pretty typical of the rest of the board, “What? Him?”
Iger had made his decision. Arnold wanted Bob to do the usual thing of promote Chapek to President and COO and then the board would start interviewing him. Iger had no intention of going through the process that knocked Tom Staggs out of the running again. There would be no interviews with board members, no promoting him to Frank Wells old job, he was just going to be the CEO of the company.
The board as usual deferred to Bob Iger but did make a half-assed attempt to assert its own authority. Chapek would be a kind of probationary CEO. He would be the first in the history of the company to not have a board seat. The excuse was that he shouldn’t have a seat on the governing body that would be assessing his performance.
It was ridiculous and Chapek should have made having a board seat a requirement. They undoubtedly would have folded to the demand but at the end of the day, Bob Chapek would always revert to his default state. A weak man who in his deepest heart was a frightened accountant. Chapek had thrived in Disney’s passive-aggressive corporate environment because it appealed to his nature.
In January of 2020, Bob Iger got a briefing that forced him to accelerate his succession plan. The parks in Asia and Europe were going be forcibly closed. Trump either didn’t have the will or the power to take the extraordinary means needed to keep Covid out the United States.
Five days later the first confirmed case of Novel Corona Virus 2019 was identified in Washington State.
After the press conference on the 25th of February problems began to set in with this special relationship. Iger wanted to be something that had become all the rage with Boomer businessmen who didn’t want to be forced into retirement, his was to be the Executive Chairman of the Board and Chapek was to report to him as well as the board of directors.
Iger also insisted on keeping Michael Eisner’s old office that he’d moved into when he became CEO. It had a shower in it and Bob, “lived for those two shower days.” Meaning the days that he would abolute, put on his tux, and head out to an event in all his glory as the most powerful man in Hollywood.
Iger is clearly a narcissist and the loss of any status was proving to be intolerable to him. The lines of authority were clear as mud to the rest of the company. If Chapek gave you an order and you didn’t like you would just take the matter to Iger who would frequently would side against the CEO in these disputes.
In April of 2020, Bob Chapek would be having his first earnings call as CEO. Iger, Chapek, Christine McCarthy, and a few others flew out to North Carolina on a private jet, and here is where the story gets interesting.
According to one version of the story Iger was running drills with Chapek on questions that investors would likely ask. After a while, Chapek picks up the binder and moves to an office in the plane and closes the door.
In Chapek’s version, Iger was doing that at first but then switched to stories about Hollywood, and Chapek didn’t leave until Iger started showing them the plans for his new yacht on his iPad Pro. Then went to the other end of the plane to study.
Iger couldn’t believe it. He got up and walked to the back of the plane and opened the door. “I thought you wanted to run questions with me?”
Chapek held up the binder, “Isn’t it all in here?”
“The basics, yes; but not the nuances,” Iger replied.
Chapek, who prefers to learn by reading and memorizing material — and thought he’d already spent the first hour or two prepping with Iger said, “I’d rather stay in back and study.”
Iger returned to the front of the plane and said, “I may have made a big mistake.”
What Iger meant by “The basics, yes; but not the nuances,” was that he wanted Chapek to answer those question the way Iger wanted him to answer them. It was the start of a two-year campaign where Chapek would find himself undermined by Bob Iger at almost every turn.
Chapek now regards his time as CEO of Disney as “three years of hell.” He was keenly aware that Iger wanted to become CEO again. Chapek is finally leaking or more likely he was always leaking and no one wanted to publish it. Times have changed. The New York Times just published a hostile expose of this period. While that rag isn’t what it was, it is now a very accurate record of where Clownworld has declared the Overton Window is now located.
They’ve given up on Iger.
