Disney Names Susan Arnold As Woman Chair

Walt Disney Co on Wednesday tapped Susan Arnold as its chairman of the board, the first woman to be named to the role in the entertainment company's 98-year-long history.

Arnold, who has been a board member for 14 years, will succeed Bob Iger on Dec. 31.

Iger, who stepped down as Disney's chief executive officer in 2020 after 15 years in the role, will leave the company by the end of this month.

Susan Arnold

Arnold's appointment comes at a time when big corporations are moving away from an organizational structure where the CEO and chairperson roles are held by a single person following a push by corporate-governance experts, shareholders and, in some cases, regulators to untangle the two roles.

Arnold was formerly an operating executive of equity investment firm The Carlyle Group. She has also served in executive roles at Procter and Gamble and McDonald's Corp.

Several other Disney executives have announced plans to leave by the end of 2021, including Studios head Alan Horn, president and chief creative officer of Disney Branded Television Gary Marsh and company general counsel Alan Braverman.

In naming Ms. Arnold as its chairman, Disney’s board is turning to an executive with extensive experience on boards and with consumer goods, reports The Wall Street Journal. Before joining Carlyle, Ms. Arnold was president of global business units at Procter & Gamble, a role she was promoted to after working in the company’s beauty and health division. She served as a director for McDonald’s Corp. for eight years, leaving in 2016.

She will lead a board that has had to weather an unprecedented period of turmoil in recent years. Shortly after Bob Chapek was named CEO, Covid-19 shut down Disney parks world-wide and closed movie theaters. Theme parks and theaters have since largely reopened with some restrictions.

The company since then has accelerated its plans to focus on direct-to-consumer streaming services such as Disney+, which saw fast growth soon after launching and kept company shares afloat during the pandemic. However, Disney reported last month that subscriber growth had slowed significantly in the most recent financial quarter, sending shares tumbling.