Disney votes to keep Bob Chapek CEO for 3 years

Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss shares of Disney amid the company's leadership decisions.

Video transcript

- It's a tale of two CEOs. Shares of Pinterest and Disney are in focus after both companies announced news on the respective CEOs. Disney announced that their board has unanimously voted to extend Bob Chapek to July 2025, and Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann said he is stepping aside as CEO. Let's start with Disney here, guys.

Those thinking that Bob Chapek was going to get the boot after under two years a CEO probably were not understanding of what was going on inside of Disney. He's not necessarily liked inside the company. He's had a lot of missteps. But still, Disney is not the type of company to make a swift decision like this after such a short period of time, and especially after the long-time leadership of Bob Iger. So to me, it makes sense. Now in 2025 we're having this discussion, results haven't improved, maybe he doesn't get extended.

- So I've been looking a little bit at the record, OK? He took over in February of 2020 which, admittedly, timing not very fortuitous for him. The stock is down 31% since then. But it's down 52% since it hit a record high in March of 2021. And if you look at what's happened during his tenure, the sort of back and forth on the so-called "Don't Say Gay" law in Florida and his conflict with Governor DeSantis there, a fight with Scarlett Johansson over pay that got a lot of attention, he's reorganized the corporate structure.

But I think perhaps most fundamentally-- and this happened before him, by the way-- the company pivoted towards streaming at a time where maybe now that strategy is looking less solid in the wake of Netflix's weakness. Now, again, that's not something that happened under him. Iger pushed and pushed and pushed for that change as well. So maybe that's one of the reasons perhaps they're giving him a little bit more leeway to see if that strategy is going to work over the longer term.

- And even in the early year that he was officially the CEO in title, Bob Iger's still staying around--

- Yes, good point.

- --early through the pandemic. So you had this jockeying that was kind of taking place to really figure out who the face of this leadership was at Disney, where Bob Iger was still looked at by the board as someone who could help them navigate while Chapek at the same time in a reopening type of capacity would be looked at for what he had-- the expertise he had for years, which was parks and resorts.

And that experience, as that's just starting to come back, I guess the bet on him is that he's going to be able to navigate them once again. And if we're reopening parks and resorts, in spite of, to your point, Julie, a lot of the growth prospects really being hinged on the streaming side of the business right now.

- He has to make his mark on the company. And so far, it's almost like he's just been managing the ship that he got from Bob Iger and just trying to get the ship outside or through the other side of the pandemic. Shanghai Disney, I believe, opens tomorrow in China. But still, whether that mark comes via a blockbuster new movie franchise or another acquisition-- of course, Bob Iger out there bought Fox, bought several other key assets to the business. Lucasfilms was one of them too. What is Bob Chapek going to do? How is he going to make his mark in the next three years?

- I mean, the stock isn't moving much, but it's moving a little bit to the upside. So it's not as though-- there doesn't appear to be a lot of disappointment with this news, although now it's up a little bit less than it was earlier. So you know, we'll end up seeing what happens.