[MouseMan]

Outgoing Disney CEO Eisner sees future in showbiz

2 hours, 42 minutes ago
Reuters News


Michael Eisner is busy promoting his new book at the moment but is determined to find a new job in show business once his 20-year reign as chief executive of the Walt Disney Co. ends in September.

"I didn't pass medical school, and I'm not good at organic chemistry," he told New York Post columnist Cindy Adams in an interview published on Friday. "So it will have to be some other entertainment-related company -- TV, movies, Internet, Broadway. I just don't know yet."

Following a lengthy struggle with dissident shareholders who sought his ouster for more than a year, Eisner, 63, will be replaced as chief executive officer by his top lieutenant, Bob Iger, on Sept. 30.

A forceful executive who clashed bitterly with some of his associates but nonetheless presided over a period of meteoric growth at Disney, Eisner said the entertainment conglomerate had "no rudder" when he assumed control in 1984.

"The company was floating. Decisions had to be made," he said. "I know I'm perceived as a guy who's tough, but, given authority, you either take it or not."

A former NBC page who worked his way up the corporate ladder, Eisner said everything he learned about leadership and teamwork came from his boyhood experiences at summer camp, the subject of his newly published memoir, "Camp."

"My future grounding was all at camp," he said. "See, failure at school lowers your self-esteem. ... But in camp, you can't sail, you can cook. Can't cook, you can hike or paint. You can succeed in something.

"Leading a troop through the woods was my lone experience at leadership until my 30s. In my 20s, I was Xeroxing and getting laundry done."

Eisner insisted that, contrary to his image as an imperious executive, he was a team player, again citing his summer camp experience to prove his point.

"You can't be on a big lake with a heavy thunderstorm due, make it to shore, pitch a tent, light a fire with dry wood, find food and make a meal unless you're a team player," he said.

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