Bob Iger rocks Disney

    The invisible man

    Unlike his predecessor, Iger doesn't host Disney TV shows. He pens no florid letters to shareholders. He uses an alias for his e-mail account - one that plays on his wife's name. "Personally I would prefer staying completely invisible or anonymous," he says, "but I don't think it would be good for the company."

    Iger made an early decision that most of his time as CEO would be spent "managing inside the walls" of the Magic Kingdom. He says hello to everyone on the Disney campus in Burbank and leads the Disney team that raises money by competing in the Malibu Triathalon.

    Iger is devoutly, if not obsessively, fit and disciplined, working out at his Brentwood home at 4:30 each morning, then taking a break to read the papers and download music before driving his BMW to the office, often making the first pot of coffee when he gets there. This fall he put himself on a diet, dropping more than 13 pounds from his already buff frame because he "didn't feel comfortable." He jokes that his wife, Willow Bay, a journalist who is a former model and TV anchor, "has a diet that mainly consists of arugula." He and Bay have two young sons, and Iger has two grown daughters - and a granddaughter - from a first marriage.

    At work Iger is fixated on quality and the ways that it can be measured and studied in everything from consumers' attitudes toward the Disney brand to waiting times for theme park rides. When Kevin Jonas had lunch with Iger one day last year in Disney's dining room, he was struck by how much Iger knew about the rotation his boys' songs were getting on the radio that morning.

    John Pepper, the retired Procter & Gamble CEO who is now Disney's chairman, says the company's approach to measuring data is very similar to P&G's, and that Iger's push to organize the company around franchises echoes the way consumer products giants like P&G manage their top-selling brands. "Disney," Pepper says, "is a zealot for data."