#Disney’s Bob Iger joins board of vegan dairy startup

Disney’s Bob Iger is joining his first outside board of directors since stepping down from the Apple board 13 months ago.

The Mouse House executive chairman and former CEO will fill a founder-designated board seat on Perfect Day, a Berkeley, Calif.-based startup that uses fermentation to produce animal-free, flora-made dairy protein.

“Innovation and leadership are both key to world changing ideas,” Iger said in a statement Wednesday. “Perfect Day has established both innovation in its use of technology and novel approach to fighting climate change, and clear leadership in building a category with a multi-year head start in the industry they’re helping to build.”

Iger, who stepped down as Disney’s CEO in February just before the pandemic reached the US,  joins Perfect Day cofounders, Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi and representatives from lead investors Aftab Mathur of Temasek Holdings and Patrick Zhang of Horizons Ventures, on the start-up’s board.

Iger, who will remain Disneys’ executive chairman through 2021, resigned from Apple’s board in 2019 as the two companies were readying to launch competing streaming video services.

Although Iger’s new gig seems a tad off-brand, the exec has some history in the (non-vegan) dairy space. He mentored the founders of the Brooklyn-based ice cream company Ample Hills Creamery in 2015, and helped them secure space in Disney World, and rights to use Star Wars branding in its flavors.