By Ben Fritz And Erich Schwartzel
As the lead trumpet player at Minnetonka High in the late 1970s,
Tom Staggs had a "strong, confident sound" that set the pace for
the jazz band, recalls Dan Geldert, a former music teacher at the
suburban Minneapolis school.
But Mr. Staggs "was not what you'd call a jazz improviser," Mr.
Geldert added. "He led by example."
Now, nearly 40 years later, Mr. Staggs is the newly appointed
chief operating officer of Walt Disney Co. and the leading
candidate to succeed Chief Executive Robert Iger when he steps down
in 2018.
Should Mr. Staggs get the gig as the most powerful executive in
Hollywood, associates say the 54-year-old is as unlikely to start
riffing as he was in the jazz band.
In interviews with more than a dozen people who have worked with
Mr. Staggs during his 25 years at Disney, the executive is
described as analytical, intelligent and extremely personable--and
also as someone who keeps his strongest opinions close to the vest.
It is a description many note also fits Mr. Staggs's boss.
"He's like a clone of Bob," said one former Disney employee.
"Bob has a level of presence and charm that's very hard to
match, but of anyone at the company, Tom comes the closest," said
Steve Wadsworth, a former president of Disney's Internet Group.
Both Disney executives participate in a triathlon in Malibu,
Calif. Mr. Staggs sends his three sons to the same private school
that one of Mr. Iger's children attends.
Mr. Iger will be a hard act to follow. His 10-year tenure is
widely viewed on Wall Street and in Hollywood as a success, during
which Disney's stock price has increased nearly fivefold.
A Disney spokeswoman said neither Mr. Staggs nor Mr. Iger would
comment.
After growing up the youngest of three sons in the
upper-middle-class bedroom community of Excelsior, Minn., Mr.
Staggs attended the University of Minnesota, where he began
studying music but quickly switched his major to business. He
earned an M.B.A. at Stanford University and had a brief stint in
investment banking at Morgan Stanley & Co. before joining
Disney's strategic planning group in 1990, where he worked on
several major acquisitions. These included the purchases of Capital
Cities/ABC and the Anaheim Ducks hockey team, as well as the
company's move into the cruise business.
At "strat planning," essentially a group of internal consultants
that had an often contentious relationship with other parts of the
company at the time, Mr. Staggs stood out.
"Tom was different, because people in the operating groups
didn't view him with disdain," said Jeff Shell, a former Disney
employee and longtime friend of Mr. Staggs who is now chairman of
Comcast Corp.'s Universal Filmed Entertainment Group.
"At Disney, the culture is you've got to know people, and Tom is
gifted at that," said a former staffer close to him. "Tom is the
kind of guy who always asks how you're doing on an elevator, never
forgets your name once he meets you, and takes the time to learn
about your kids."
His amiable personality did cause some concerns early in his
career. After an internal meeting at which Mr. Staggs made a
presentation about the Ducks deal, then-CEO Michael Eisner wondered
aloud whether the younger executive would be aggressive enough to
succeed at the company, according to two people present. Through a
spokesman, Mr. Eisner denies making the comment.
Mr. Staggs overcame such concerns, and in 1998 Mr. Eisner named
him chief financial officer at the age of 37, a post he held for 12
years. When he attended product reviews and other meetings at
Disney's business units, Mr. Staggs appeared to be as much a
strategic partner to Mr. Eisner and then Mr. Iger as he did a chief
accountant. "He wasn't just about managing the numbers," said Mr.
Wadsworth.
Mr. Staggs was a key player in Disney's digital strategy during
the first dot-com boom, including the decision to establish a
tracking stock in part to acquire Internet assets without giving
away company shares. (The strategy fizzled when the dot-com boom
went bust in 2001.) Later, he was heavily involved in managing
relations with Wall Street during a 2004 shareholder revolt against
Mr. Eisner and in the acquisitions of Pixar and Marvel.
When Mr. Iger took over in 2005, Mr. Staggs became a close aide
to the CEO. Among his tasks was helping to make the headquarters
more hospitable to young creative executives. A fitness nut, Mr.
Staggs oversaw the construction of a new gym, among other
projects.
While Mr. Staggs loves wine and cooking--he oversees the
preparation of Thanksgiving dinner for more than 50 people at his
home each year--his health discipline has achieved near-legendary
status. "I never saw the man eat a carb," said a person who worked
closely with him.
In 2010, Mr. Iger had Mr. Staggs trade jobs with Jay Rasulo,
then head of Disney's parks and resorts division. The switch gave
Mr. Staggs his first operational experience and placed him in a
"bake-off" with Mr. Rasulo, who was seen before Mr. Staggs's recent
promotion as another potential CEO candidate. (Mr. Rasulo's
contract as CFO expired in January and he hasn't yet renewed it or
publicly commented on his future plans.)
People in theme parks, a massive global operation that isn't as
closely tied to Disney's Burbank, Calif., headquarters as some of
its other businesses, were initially skeptical about the
newcomer.
Among the changes he brought to the parks group was a process
called "constructive discomfort" in which he encouraged employees
to challenge their own habits and methods, said Meg Crofton,
president of parks and resorts operations for the U.S. and
France.
But Mr. Staggs quickly won allies after he spent months
exploring the company's five theme-park resorts and began spending
one day a week with Imagineers, the team that designs and builds
rides and attractions, Ms. Crofton said.
His major projects have included the rollout of My Magic Plus, a
long-in-development and sometimes troubled technology that allows
Walt Disney World guests to plan their trip and make purchases with
a wirelessly connected wristband; overseeing the construction of an
ambitious $5.5 billion Shanghai theme park in partnership with the
Chinese government, the completion of which was recently pushed
back from late 2015 to spring of 2016; and a deal to build
attractions based on the 2009 box-office blockbuster "Avatar" in
the Animal Kingdom park at Walt Disney World.
The makeover at Animal Kingdom is one of several projects
allowing Mr. Staggs to build his bona fides in creative
decision-making, a potential deficiency for a man who has spent
much of his career as CFO but could soon ascend to the top of the
world's largest entertainment company.
The parks chief was significantly involved in the design of the
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which made its debut at Walt Disney World
last year, said Ms. Crofton. In addition, he pushed to keep
sophisticated audio-animatronic characters at the "Avatar" land
when problems arose in their design, said the movie's director
James Cameron.
"He's got the right balance of hands-on and hands-off," said Mr.
Cameron. "And frankly that's the biggest issue for leadership in
any of these creative content enterprises."
Write to Ben Fritz at ben.fritz@wsj.com and Erich Schwartzel at
erich.schwartzel@wsj.com
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