|
NEW YORK
(CNNmoney) - Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday that Jacques Nasser will be replaced
as chief executive officer by William Clay Ford Jr. as the nation's No. 2
automaker struggles to stem losses.
In addition, Nick Scheele, the group vice president for North America, will
become the new chief operating officer of Ford Motor, while Jim Padilla, 55,
group vice president for manufacturing and quality, will take over Scheele's
job as head of the North America unit.
And longtime Ford board member Carl Reichardt, the retired CEO and chairman
of Wells Fargo &
Co. (WFC: Research,
Estimates),
will take the title of vice chairman of the board and take an active role
overseeing financial operations, including Ford Credit.
|
|
|
|
Jacques
Nasser
Ford CEO is out of a job.
|
|
|
The
moves come as Ford has been cutting management positions and other jobs in
recent months during a review of company operations as it struggles to return
to profitability.
Ford (F: up $0.04 to $16.09, Research,
Estimates)
stock was little changed in midday trading after the long-anticipated
announcement.
Scheele, who was brought to North America this summer after making
improvements in Ford's European operations and luxury brands, was already
conducting a review of the businesses looking for cost savings. Scheele said
Tuesday that review was about halfway done, although he said that the
pre-Christmas deadline for a final cost-cutting plan could be pushed back to
early January. He and Ford told a Tuesday news conference that all parts of
the company are under scrutiny.
"We won't hesitate to pull the trigger if something isn't fitting in
well," said Ford. "I think we have lost the focus in a couple of
areas."
Ford,
44, is the great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford and nephew of the
late former chairman and CEO Henry Ford II. He also is great-grandson of
Harvey Firestone, founder of the tire company that has clashed with Ford
Motor Co. in the last year over which company is to blame for fatal rollover
accidents involving the popular Ford Explorer sport/utility vehicles and
Firestone tires.
A Princeton graduate with a master of science degree in management from MIT,
the scion joined the company in 1979 as a product planning analyst and was
elected chairman of the board in September 1998.
He admits he has a different kind of reputation than the typical CEO, as he
said his strong pro-environmental views have given him a
"tree-hugger" label. He insisted Tuesday his views on the
environment are not at odds with company's core objectives and will be integrated
into Ford products through use of improved technology.
He also has a relatively pro-employee, even pro-union, reputation, and he
said improving relationships with the United Autoworkers union as well as
other employees and constituency groups would be a key to his job going
forward.
"You can't rebuild the business if you don't have strong
partnerships," Ford said. "Dealers, UAW, white collar employees,
suppliers, Wall Street - we have a lot of relationships that are important to
us. A lot of those are broken or not healthy."
Ford becomes the third descendent of founder Henry Ford to hold the top
executive job, but the first since his uncle Henry Ford II stepped down as
CEO in 1979. Ford also said that while his name and his family's control of
the company's voting stock was a factor in his selection, he didn't think it
was the deciding factor.
|
|
|
|
|
William
Clay Ford, great-grandson of Ford Motor Co. founder Henry Ford, is the new
CEO of the world's No. 2 automaker.
|
|
|
|
"I
would hope the board of directors takes their job more seriously than putting
in the guy with the right last name," he said at the press conference.
He insisted that despite reports of problems between him and Nasser, the two
have a good relationship and had a cordial conversation Monday when
discussing the change. While there has been speculation about Ford assuming
the CEO for some time, he said it was "fairly recently" that he and
others on the board decided it was time to make the change.
"Until very recently (Nasser) and I felt the model we had in place was
going to work," he said. The recent problems at the company had raised
the level of speculation about a change to such a level that a change became
necessary, he said.
"To say we were distracted was an understatement," he said.
"It was reaching a paralysis point for a lot of our management."
Ford also is a black belt in the martial art of tae kwon do and the vice
chairman of the Detroit Lions football team, which his family also controls.
"You'd think the Lions won a game or something," he joked when he
was greeted by applause before his remarks to employees.
Nasser, 53, joined Ford of Australia in 1968 as a financial analyst. Known as
Jack, his cost-cutting efforts earned him the nickname "Jack the
knife."
Some analysts said that Nasser's departure was a good thing for the company.
"Nasser's been the primary architect of a failed transformation of Ford
from its core automotive heritage to some expansive consumer-centric
organization, which we think employees, dealers, suppliers and investors have
found to varying degrees to be somewhat incomprehensible," said Scott
Hill, auto analyst with Sanford Bernstein, told CNNfn's Market Call Tuesday.
Nasser was the company's point man in the dispute with tiremaker
Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. over which company was responsible for the safety
problems and hundreds of deaths linked to Ford Explorers equipped with
Firestone tires. Ford Motor eventually decided to replace Firestone
Wilderness AT tires on its vehicles at its own expense.
In addition to the replacement of Firestone tires, which cost Ford about $2.1
billion after taxes, the company has been hit in recent months with declining
market share and narrowing of its competitive
advantage over other U.S.-based automakers in measures of productivity
amid a series of recalls and problems with the launches of new vehicles.
|
