The Disney Company, which was built on the strength of an animated mouse, has had two
famous leaders in its history: Walt Disney and Michael Eisner. There were other executives
who tended the company after Walt Disney’s death in the mid-1960s, but the company
foundered without a strong leader until Eisner took over in the mid-1980s. Eisner is the
person who led the company out of the doldrums and helped to shape it into a media giant
by the talented leadership skill, which is seen as charismatic leadership.
Michael Dammann Eisner was born on March 7, 1942 in Mount Kisco, New York. He was
raised on Park Avenue in Manhattan, and then attended the Allen-Stevenson School
kindergarten through ninth grade followed by The Lawrenceville School in tenth through
his senior year and graduated from Denison University in 1964 with a B.A in English. He
is a member of the Delta Upsilon Fraternity and credits much of his accomplishments to
his time at Keewaydin Canoe Camp for boys in Vermont. After two brief stints at NBC and
CBS, Barry Diller at ABC hired Eisner as assistant to the National Programming Director.
Eisner moved up to the ranks, eventually becoming a senior vice president in charge of
programming and development. In 1976, Diller, who had by then moved on to become
chairman of Paramount Pictures, recruited Eisner from ABC and made him president and
CEO of the movie studio. During his tenure at Paramount, the studio turned out many hit
films such as Saturday Night Fever, Grease, and hit TV shows such as Happy days,
