The Walt Disney Company has named a new CEO.

Bob Chapek is replacing Bob Iger, effective immediately, the company announced Tuesday.

Chapek, 60, who has been with the company for 27 years and was most recently chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, a position created in 2018, will take over Disney's day-to-day operations, the company says.

That will allow Iger, who will stay on as executive chairman through Dec. 31, 2021, to focus on the company's overall creative vision and strategy over his remaining two years with the company.

The time was right for Iger to step down as CEO, he said, now that Disney had successfully launched Disney+ in November 2019 and consolidated into the fold the Fox movie and television studios, acquired in a $71.3 billion transaction that closed in March 2019.

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"We feel that this change gives us the ability to manage the company much more effectively ... and enabling me to concentrate on what's obviously very important," Iger said on a call with investment analysts Tuesday afternoon. "It also sets up, we think, a great transition process that will lead to, basically, Bob taking over the company fully when I leave and at that point being far better versed in all the company's businesses and creative endeavors. It just made sense. It was that simple."

Meet the new Disney boss

Chapek is the seventh CEO in company's nearly 100-year history. Disney is "extremely fortunate that we have in Bob someone that knows the company extremely well (and) that we know so well," Iger said.

Experience across Disney's different companies including parks, consumer products and home video has prepared Chapek for the CEO spot, he says.

"Everything in my career has been a consumer-oriented business. That's where I played," Chapek said. "The idea that now I will be able to take that background and experience including everything I have done in consumer products and in our parks and now employ to a direct-to-consumer business feels like it is well within my wheelhouse."

Disney's challenge, Chapek says, is "how do we continue to have a leg up on our competition and understand when the market is changing and stay ahead of that so that we are proactive transforming, as opposed to in any way reacting."

Chapek's annual base salary is $2.5 million and he is eligible for a bonus of “not less than 300% of the annual base salary,” according to a document filed with the Securities and Exchanges Commission.