BURBANK, CALIFORNIA (April 1, 2025) — The Walt Disney Company proudly announces that Bob Stifkowski has been unanimously named the company’s incoming CEO, replacing Robert Iger, who will step down from the position on May 15, 2025.
“After we promoted Bob Iger, and replaced him with Bob Chapek, then invited Bob back to replace Bob, we determined that the best choice to replace Bob who replaced Bob who replaced Bob would be another Bob,” said James P. Gorman, Chairman of the Board.
Mr. Iger remarked: “Bob has a remarkable strategy based on shutting down our studio, television, and streaming units, selling our cruise ships, foreign parks and overseas interests, and concentrating solely on our California and Florida resorts and video games. We’re looking forward to continuing to differentiate ourselves from the competition in the years going forward.”
“I’m very excited to bring my out-of-the-box thinking to the company,” said Stifkowski. “I’ve only been to Six Flags, so this is very exciting to me.”
Among Stifkowski’s many planned initiatives will be combining EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios into a single theme park: Disney’s Magicular Kingdomrific Legendary Magical Kingdom. “It makes sense to me,” Stifkowski shares. “And by doing this, the Beach Club, Yacht Club, and Boardwalk all become in-park hotels, allowing us to charge an even greater room rate or the unique experience of staying inside a theme park.”
In California, Stifkowski plans to redefine the Disneyland Forward initiative in a new and exciting direction. “I misunderstood. When I applied for the job, I didn’t realize it was ‘Forward,'” he explains. “I thought it was ‘Four Wards,’ like in that video game League of Legends. So we’re going to create these four huge blank spaces – some of the largest buildings ever in Disneyland Resort history – where people will walk around holding laptops that they’re playing the game on. This dude I really like, Bruce Vaughn, that I met when I took this tour of Walt Disney Imagineering, told me he did something like this with virtual reality. We’re going to do the same thing at Disneyland Resort, but with laptops.”
Stifkowski most recently served as Assistant Lead Mechanic at Gypsylube in Queens, New York. He is a graduate of the Automotive Technology program at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, MA and currently resides in Staten Island with his wife and eight dogs.
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