Bob Daly to Step Down as AFI Board Chair After 17 Years

By Daniel Okafor

Bob Daly will step down as chair of the American Film Institute Board of Directors on Wednesday, Oct. 21, Variety revealed exclusively. That date ends 17 years of leadership and a board tenure stretching back to April 1981.

Daly, the former Warner Bros. chair and co-CEO, was named AFI chair on Oct. 8, 2009, succeeding co-chairs Jon Avnet and John Cooke. His Hollywood résumé reads like a studio-lot map: CBS Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Warner Bros., the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He started at CBS as a gofer in 1955. Twenty-five years later he was president of the network, overseeing all television operations. In 1980 he moved to Warner Bros. as chairman and co-CEO alongside Terry Semel, and over 19 years the pair delivered 16 consecutive years of record earnings. They supervised 13 Best Picture Oscar nominees and won three: "Chariots of Fire," "Driving Miss Daisy" and "Unforgiven."

After Warner Bros., Daly ran the Los Angeles Dodgers as chair and CEO for four years, selling the team in 2004. He also chaired the charity Save the Children.

What did Daly say about leaving?

His statement carried the cadence of a man who has run everything except a bakery.

"In a career that brought me from running CBS to Warner Bros. to the Los Angeles Dodgers, I can honestly say that serving as Chairman of the AFI Board of Directors has been one of the greatest honors of my life," Daly said. "This is a board that represents all aspects of the film and television communities, and to see they come together with a shared passion for the art form has been a wonder to behold. Long live the AFI!"

Who succeeds him?

The source names no successor. The AFI's power structure does offer context, though. Kathleen Kennedy, former Lucasfilm president, chairs the AFI Board of Trustees — a separate body from the directors' board Daly has led.

That trustees' roster is essentially a Hollywood congress. It includes Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Ava DuVernay, Halle Berry, Shonda Rhimes, Patty Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Ted Sarandos, Donna Langley, Michael B. Jordan, Sean Astin, Edward James Olmos and roughly a dozen more industry figures, alongside Daly's predecessor Avnet.

What does the AFI actually do?

Founded in 1967, the AFI is a nonprofit with three mandates: preserve the heritage of the motion picture, honor artists and their work, and educate the next generation of storytellers.

AFI president and CEO Bob Gazzale credited Daly with four decades of impact across all three. "Leadership is an art in itself — and in that regard, Mr. Daly is a master," Gazzale said. "Over the past forty years, no single person has had a greater impact on AFI's work in preservation, celebration and education than Bob Daly — and we have promised to march forward each day with a promise to prove him proud."

Why the timing matters

A 2009 appointee departing in 2025 means Daly has guided the institute through the streaming upheaval, a pandemic and the academy's ongoing identity negotiations. Whoever takes the gavel on Oct. 21 inherits a trustee bench deep enough to field a prestige drama, and a mandate — preservation, celebration, education — that Gazzale has already promised to keep proving worthy of the outgoing chair.