Mulally To Retire, Fields Named New Ford CEO
Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally will step down July 1, with the maker’s current Chief Operating Officer Mark Fields stepping in as his successor. The move is no surprise to those familiar with the automaker’s plans which were largely laid out in late 2012 when the 52-year-old Fields was appointed to the COO position, a senior company insider at the time saying the top spot was "Mark’s to lose."
A 25-year Ford veteran and one of the first executives at the company to embrace the radical changes brought by 68-year-old Alan Mulally, Fields is expected to largely maintain the current course his predecessor brought to the only Detroit automaker that was able to avoid bankruptcy during the Great Recession. That said, both Ford insiders and company observers run down a list of serious challenges that will face the maker going forward.
Fields was a keynote speaker at NAFA's 2010 Institute & Expo, held that year in Detroit. He spoke with NAFA on the eve of the conference on the subject of the decommissioned Crown Victoria and its successor in the public safety segment, the police-oriented Interceptor. You can read that by clicking here.
Though Ford delivered strong $7.2 billion in profits for all of 2013, including $3 billion for the fourth quarter alone, it has signaled a likely dip this year due to heavy investment in new products – 23 new models due worldwide in 2014 — and for the expansion of its Chinese operations.
Ford was late to the party in that booming nation, now the world’s largest automotive market, though it has been generating significant growth over the last several years. Nonetheless, it is struggling to catch up to market leaders General Motors and Volkswagen AG.
Ford has other challenges to deal with, including the long-awaited turnaround in Europe where it has been losing money for most of the decade. There are signs the effort is gaining traction, though Fields declined to say he expected Ford of Europe would be back in the black this year, sticking with a forecast of a turnaround by 2016.
Perhaps the biggest challenge Fields faces will be staying on track with the One Ford strategy put in place after former Boeing executive Mulally was recruited nearly eight years ago. Fields generally gets credit for being the first top Ford executive to embrace the new Mulally approach, which called on managers to put the company first. But there have been occasional signs that the classic Ford culture hasn’t been completely extinguished, creating occasional problems and forcing a few management moves.