DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Alan Mulally, the man who
transformed Ford Motor Co. from a dysfunctional money-loser to a
thriving company, will retire July 1 and be replaced by Mark Fields, the
current chief operating officer.
During his eight-year tenure at
Ford, Mulally gambled all of the company’s assets on a credit line that
kept Ford out of bankruptcy, then used a simple "One Ford" plan to
change the company’s culture. He was hired away from aircraft maker
Boeing Co. in 2006 by Bill Ford, who at the time was running the
company.
Fields, 53, has been in charge of Ford’s daily operations
since December of 2012 and was widely expected to one day ascend to the
top job. The change in leadership is taking place about six months
ahead of schedule, but Ford said that was based on Mulally’s
recommendation that the new leaders were ready.
"Alan and I feel
strongly that Mark and the entire leadership team are absolutely ready
to lead Ford forward, and now is the time to begin the transition," Bill
Ford said in a statement Thursday morning. Bill Ford, the company’s
executive chairman, is the great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford.
Mulally,
68, was trained as an aeronautical engineer. He spent 36 years at
Boeing — and was president of the company’s commercial airplane division
— when Bill Ford lured him to the struggling automaker eight years ago.
Mulally overcame skepticism about being an outsider in the insular
ranks of Detroit car guys by quickly pinpointing the reasons why Ford
was losing billions each year. Mulally put a stop to the infighting that
had paralyzed the company and instituted weekly management meetings
where executives faced new levels of accountability and were encouraged
to work together to solve problems.
It took two years for Mulally
to turn the company around, but since 2009, Ford has posted pretax
profits of $34.5 billion and its shares have more than doubled.
Fields
was one of the executives passed over when Mulally got the top job in
2006. When he was named COO in 2012, Bill Ford said Fields’ decision to
stay at Ford and learn from Mulally showed a lot of fortitude and has
made Fields a better leader.
"There was a lot of speculation about
whether he was capable. To his great credit, he stuck to it, he learned
from it and showed tremendous fortitude in grinding through an
incredibly difficult process," Bill Ford said.
This marks the
second change in leadership at the top of one of the Detroit automakers
this year. Mary Barra took over as CEO for Dan Akerson at General Motors
in January.
Fields joined Ford as a market research analyst in
1989 and quickly rose through the company’s ranks. Less than a decade
later, in 1997, he was running the company’s operations in Argentina. In
2000, he became the youngest CEO ever at a Japanese company when Ford
installed him as head of Mazda Motor Co., which Ford controlled at the
time.
There, he oversaw the catchy "Zoom Zoom" ad campaign. He was
later head of Ford’s European division and its luxury brands, which
struggled with losses despite his tough medicine, including the closure
of a historic Jaguar plant in Britain.
Fields returned to Ford’s
Dearborn headquarters in 2005 to become president of the Americas. As
the company struggled to make a profit, Fields hashed out a plan to turn
around Ford’s money-losing North American operations by closing
factories, laying off thousands of workers and using Ford’s design
expertise in Europe to build better cars.
Supporters say Fields is
an excellent strategist with a deep knowledge of the business. His
international experience is invaluable as Ford restructures its European
operations and focuses on growth in volatile young markets like Asia
and South America.
Fields is friendly and polished, with sharp
suits and a bit of a swagger. He was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., the
youngest of three sons. At the New York Auto Show in April, he showed a
home movie of his family at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. He
remembered the excitement of the crowd when he was lifted on his
father’s shoulders to see the new Ford Mustang.
Fields was raised
in Paramus, N.J., and earned a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University
in 1983. He sold computers for IBM before earning an MBA from Harvard
Business School in 1989.
Like Barra, who became the first female
CEO of a big automaker at GM, Fields will be breaking a mold at Ford. He
is the first Jewish chief executive at the 111-year-old company.
Ford shares fell 12 cents to $16.03 in early trading
Thursday.
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