The Big Picture

Vincent Boland: It proved to be a short spell at the top for Disney’s king of the castle

Picking a successor is not easy and Bob Chapek’s dismissal as Disney boss is an admission of failure by the entertainment giant’s directors — as well as a textbook example of poor corporate governance

A company’s board of directors has many roles, from holding the executive suite to account and ensuring the numbers add up to keeping in touch with investors. Yet in the end no task is more important than succession planning. Directors are the custodians of a company, and their duty of care is to ensure that it passes from one reasonably competent chief executive to another.

This is true if the incumbent is a celebrity, or ...