Disney CEO Bob Iger named the 2019 TIME Businessperson of the Year. In 2019, Bob Iger oversaw the creative choices for The Walt Disney Company and began making choices that would see the company expand and grow far past his time as CEO. With rumors of retirement swirling for years, it seems Bob Iger doesn’t plan to get “senioritis” on his road to retirement.
Bob Iger has overseen some of the biggest changes in Disney through his career as CEO. With the total revamp of several Disney Parks, the creation of Disneyland Shanghai, and the acquisition of Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, Pixar, and Fox, and many other big ticket items under his belt, there is no denying Bob Iger’s ability to make creative choices with a lasting impact for the future of the company.
It comes as no surprise that one of the riskiest moves has possibly become the crown jewel of Iger’s career, the creation of Disney+. For year Iger and developers worked to bring Disney Fans closer to the content they know and love, as well as opening the “Disney Vault” to share content that was previously rare and hard to find.
“I think the Disney+ launch has been amazing,” says Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who, according to TIME, was on the company’s board from 2010 to 2018. “It’s a big risk, but Bob’s really good at understanding the landscape further out as well as executing a strategy. It’s rare to be able to do both.”
“This has been probably one of the most productive years we’ve had as a company in the 15 years that I’ve been in this job,” says Iger, “This time last year, we had not closed the deal for Fox,” he says, referring to the $71 billion acquisition of most of Rupert Murdoch’s entertainment assets. “We had not opened up two Star Wars Lands, we had not launched Disney+. We had not closed the deal for control of Hulu.” Not only were these items still up in the air, but Iger has also become a best-selling author, and is donating his seven-figure earnings from his book, The Ride of a Lifetime, to create journalism scholarships.
Bob is also known to take risks, and has reaped the reward for making the tough calls to allow creators to really dive into their work. “I expected Bob’s [advice] to be more conservative, but it was actually the opposite,” said Black Panther director Ryan Coogler. “He wanted us to be more aggressive and ambitious.” Iger encouraged him to build out the theme of transgenerational trauma as it relates to race. “He wasn’t afraid from a cultural standpoint or a business standpoint.”
You can read more about TIME’s choice to make Bob Iger the 2019 TIME Businessperson of the Year by CLICKING HERE.
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Featured Photo Credit: TIME
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