Disney’s First Chief Creative Officer Dana Walden Reshapes Power After Iger

As newly appointed CEO of The Walt Disney Company, Josh D’Amaro, dominates the headlines this week, another newly promoted leader is equally important in defining Disney’s post-Bob Iger chapter. Dana Walden, co-chairman of Disney’s entertainment division, is set to step in as president and chief creative officer next month, reporting directly to D’Amaro. Walden, 61, will become the first chief creative officer in Disney’s 102-year history and the first woman to serve as the company’s president.

Although Disney has historically had chief creative officers at its animation studios (Walt Disney himself served in this position in its early years), the company has never named a chief creative officer since becoming a broadcast media organization. Walden will be the first person to oversee Disney’s film studios, cable channels, streaming services and broader creative development under one authority.

Walden, a former television executive at 21st Century Fox, joined Disney in 2019 after the company acquired his former employer, Walt Disney Television. Under his leadership, Disney’s television and broadcast content gained critical acclaim and industry recognition, winning 60 Emmys in 2024 for shows like this one. A bear again Shogun (FX and Hulu) and Danger! (ABC). He was widely seen as a front-runner for the CEO job as Bob Iger prepares to retire at the end of this year. Iger praised him as commanding “a lot of respect from the creative community.”

As of 2022, Walden has co-led Disney’s entertainment division alongside Alan Bergman. In his new role, Walden will lead everything from Hulu and Disney Branded Television to ABC News and National Geographic content. Although he has never led film programming before — which has been Bergman’s forte and will continue to be — his new position will give him strategic influence over key decisions about Disney’s flagship properties, including. star WarsMarvel and Pixar.

The most watched site under Walden’s leadership will broadcast. Disney’s streaming business, which includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, started turning a profit recently and is growing fast, with operating profit up 72 percent year over year in the latest quarter ended Dec. 27, to $450 million. However, it still lags behind more established competitors like Netflix, which brings in about $3 billion in operating profit each quarter. Disney also lost billions in the early years of Disney+ due to high startup costs, and recent profits are far from erasing accumulated losses over the life of the business.

Analysts and industry insiders hope that Disney’s early profits and Walden’s track record of driving streaming growth outside the US will help it gain a foothold in the streaming wars.

“Walden’s front seat at this time no doubt gave him a competitive edge to help Disney stay ahead at a time when many entertainment companies were still debating whether to enter the streaming race,” Erica Mountain, a screenwriter and media analyst for Universal Pictures, told the Observer.

“He has great potential to change the global broadcasting market,” Walter Nicoletti, founder and CEO of Italian film studio Voce Spettacolo, told the Observer. “Her new role could be the start of a new era of broadcasting led by a female perspective.”