Morgan Stanley’s executive chairman saved the bank during the Great Recession. Can he do the same for Disney?

Disney is in the middle of a recession. At least that would be the case if it were a nation, which it is. Over the past four years, the home of Iron Man, Predator and Mickey Mouse– with 225,000 employees in theme parks and offices around the world – lost more than $190 billion in market value. Its shares have fallen from an all-time high of $201 in March 2021 to $96 today, down 52% from the all-time high.

To prevent bleeding, Disney is using… Morgan Stanley executive chairman James Gorman as chairman of the board, effective January 2025. His main role will be to solve Disney’s long-standing problem: hiring a new CEO.

The search comes after longtime former Disney CEO Bob Iger retired at the end of 2022 to replace short-serving Bob Chapek, who was fired from the top job after a series of failures, including an embarrassing fight with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the company’s special tax status in the state. Next year row sequels greenlit by Chapek, including Ant-Man, The Little Mermaid and Indiana Jones, flopped, leaving the entertainment giant in disarray.

As analysts sift through the wreckage of Disney’s performance over the past few years, one question arises: Why Gorman? In short, the answer is a strategic mind comparable to Napoleon’s. For 15 years, the perennial outsider helped Morgan Stanley rise through a series of shrewd investments to lead the bank. income will rise from $31 billion when he took office in 2010 to $54. billion when he handed over authorities earlier this year.

Gorman has already been the subject of numerous rave reviews. accounts masterful execution of your own succession planning. After years of methodically vetting candidates, he left Morgan Stanley in January and was easily replaced by current CEO Ted Peake. But Gorman’s real superpower is strategy itself.

A 1987 graduate of Columbia Business School, Gorman was hired by the consulting giant. McKinsey straight from school. Among his first clients was Merrill Lynch, where he learned the art of third-party consulting (a skill he would use for Disney) while helping the bank develop its Internet strategy. He joined Morgan Stanley in 2006, when the company was already deeply invested in mortgage-backed securities that eventually collapsed, leading to the Great Recession and erasing $30 billion of Morgan’s market value.

Just as the Great Recession was escalating, in October 2008, Gorman and then-CEO John Mack as reported called the general director CitigroupVikram Pandit asked to buy asset management giant Smith Barney, which at the time had 15,000 brokers and $2 trillion in assets under management. Although Morgan Stanley borrowed more than $100 billion from the government in a bailout, according to report Citi was even weaker, borrowing more than $450 billion, according to the Congressional Oversight Commission.

Gorman’s phone call bore fruit. In 2009 he agreed a tiny $2.9 billion deal for 51% of a $13.5 billion brokerage operation, as reported $8.5 billion less than Citi’s estimate. The following year he was appointed general manager. While Gorman was also behind the bank’s successful acquisitions of eTrade and Solium, his success is not determined by his ability to buy.

As leader, Gorman became known for the simple strategic updates he regularly publishedstarting January 2013. While many corporate strategies are hidden behind industry jargon, Gorman organizes his presentations into easy-to-read presentations, moving quickly from the specific action to how it will be implemented and the expected financial benefits. All of Gorman’s notes reflected a clear vision of the balance between Morgan’s asset management and investment businesses and institutional securities. In practice, this meant that the bank could generate a longer-lasting revenue stream by adding fee-based management services to its securities market business.

Gorman’s ability to develop strategies beyond mergers and acquisitions will be useful for Disney, which has no problem buying businesses. Its corporate structure has become almost comical in its complexity, including not only direct ownership 21^st. Century Foxbut 50% or more shares in Marvel, Touchstone Pictures and Lucasfilm, to name a few. What Disney needs is a new strategy. While Disney’s Linear Networks cable and broadcast division has historically generated the company’s most revenue, it has largely failed to expand into streaming. Despite holding a wealth of valuable intellectual property, it has taken Disney five years to struggle to turn a profit on its Disney+ streaming service, even as its flagship theme parks continue to struggle.

So who will Gorman choose to carry out Disney’s strategy going forward? With the help of the rest of the succession planning committee, Mary Barra, CEO General MotorsCalvin McDonald, CEO of Lululemon, and outgoing chairman Mark Parker, candidates as reported candidates being considered include Disney TV boss Dana Walden; theme park and video game boss Josh D’Amaro; film director Alan Bergman; and ESPN leader Jimmy Pitaro.

But it’s interesting to note that both of Disney’s most successful recent CEOs came from outside the media giants—ABC’s Robert Iger and Paramount’s Michael Eisner—while the feckless Chapek came from within Disney.

This story was originally published on Fortune.com