Bill Ford Stepping Down as CEO of Ford

[DILLIGAF]

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/05/news...tune/index.htm

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The news that Bill Ford is stepping down as CEO of the company his great-grandfather founded is not surprising. Ford has been searching for someone to run the world's third largest automaker for more than a year and has publicly confessed that at times he felt overwhelmed by the job.

That he has gone outside the auto industry to find someone to replace him is surprising. The car business is enormously complicated and tends to be populated by engineers and sales types with gasoline in their veins who have worked in the industry for decades. They are known as "car guys" and they tend to look down upon - if not actively snub - those who find themselves working in the industry without the appropriate appreciation for its culture and byways.

So Alan Mulally, 61, most recently executive vice president of Boeing (Charts), will take office as president and CEO with one strike against him. He will neither have a reservoir of industry knowledge to fall back upon nor the immediate support of Ford's tens of thousands of employees.

He will be granted a grace period of three to six months, but his every move will be scrutinized to see if he understands what makes the 103-year old company tick.

Then there is strike two. Ford Motor (Charts) is not only a company in crisis but a company that is in the midst of its third turnaround plan in the last five years. Sales are slipping drastically and an investment banker has been hired to sell off pieces of the company. There has been unusual management turnover and the current team, which is intent on doing things its own way, has been in place for just about one year.

Mulally's arrival means more upheaval and potentially another redrawing of future plans - dangerous steps in a business where the lead time on new products is three to four years. Ford is still suffering from the after-effects of former CEO Jac Nasser's tenure, which ended five years ago.

As if that were not enough, Mulally faces all the normal problems an outsider would feel coming in to a big family-controlled company. He will have to deal with ambitious princes like Mark Fields, head of North American operations, who probably thought the CEO's job would be his in a few years. And he will have to deal with the Ford family, which controls more than 40 percent of the company's voting stock and has a short fuse when it comes to professional managers who try to run their family business.

In Ford's press release, Mulally is credited with turning around Boeing's commercial airplane division. Maybe so. The turnaround with new airplanes has been impressive and Mulally has been on the scene. But he was also there in the late 1990s when Boeing got its clock cleaned by Airbus. Which Mulally did Ford get?

So what is Mulally doing at Ford? Did Bill Ford, after being turned down by Nissan's Carlos Ghosn and Daimler's Dieter Zetsche, decide he didn't want to be embarrassed by another refusal? Or did he scour the rest of the industry, suppliers and manufacturers included, and come up with empty hands?

Mulally is a bold and risky choice for the top job at Ford Motor. Shareholders can only hope that Bill Ford has made better pick to run his team than he has in his other family enterprise: the hapless Detroit Lions football team.

[C53A_4G63T]

Thats it. Good game Ford.

[KaJuN]

So they really couldn't find any of their own employees to promote to the job? How about a guy who's been working there everyday for the last twenty years? Screw him eh?

[matt_shaw]

Originally Posted by KaJuN

So they really couldn't find any of their own employees to promote to the job? How about a guy who's been working there everyday for the last twenty years? Screw him eh?

You can't just pick a random person from the company to run something as big as ford

[No Boss]

Originally Posted by KaJuN

So they really couldn't find any of their own employees to promote to the job? How about a guy who's been working there everyday for the last twenty years? Screw him eh?

Yeah.... I wouldn't want this guy running the company if I worked for them.

[DILLIGAF]

I dunno, Eminem must be brilliant to get millions upon millions of people to be his crappy CDs.

[ESPNSTI]

Originally Posted by KaJuN

So they really couldn't find any of their own employees to promote to the job? How about a guy who's been working there everyday for the last twenty years? Screw him eh?

Evidently Ford has had a history of promoting from withing the company.
Obviously that hasn't been working for them, so a change of strategy isn't a bad idea.

Ford changes CEOs, a big oil field is found in the gulf and Intel lays off a bunch of people.
I bet the stock market is going up a bit tomorrow.

[zenkidori]

Originally Posted by DILLIGAF

I dunno, Eminem must be brilliant to get millions upon millions of people to be his crappy CDs.

except it's never the artist, but thier record companies that work everything out.

[KaJuN]

Originally Posted by matt_shaw

You can't just pick a random person from the company to run something as big as ford

Yeah I know not just anyone can run a big company. It just irritates me that people can be brought into leadership positions then cut wages, benefits, jobs, etc. without having gone through the same crap the guys at the bottom live with every day. Being hired on as a leader is the most un-American thing I can think of.

[zenkidori]

welcome to the global market. the japanese have had to make similar adjustments.

[DILLIGAF]

Originally Posted by zenkidori

except it's never the artist, but thier record companies that work everything out.

then they need to hire that guy

[Janus]

So where do I apply?

[bone]

Originally Posted by KaJuN

Yeah I know not just anyone can run a big company. It just irritates me that people can be brought into leadership positions then cut wages, benefits, jobs, etc. without having gone through the same crap the guys at the bottom live with every day. Being hired on as a leader is the most un-American thing I can think of.

so why go to university, right?
just start as a bin cleaner in a company, and 20 years later, you have a nice paying directorsjob
i'd settle for that

[vRS]

Ford really need to buck up there ideas, he shoud stay and sort his grandfathers companey out.

[matt_shaw]

Originally Posted by KaJuN

Yeah I know not just anyone can run a big company. It just irritates me that people can be brought into leadership positions then cut wages, benefits, jobs, etc. without having gone through the same crap the guys at the bottom live with every day. Being hired on as a leader is the most un-American thing I can think of.

So you rather Ford keep paying everyone good wages and go bankrupt, then try to keep the company afloat?

[Momentum57]

Originally Posted by vRS

Ford really need to buck up there ideas, he shoud stay and sort his grandfathers companey out.

Hes not leaving the company all together, just not being the CEO. He still will have a leadership position. The man said he was overwhelmed and needed someone with more technical business savvy. I’m thinking that Ford will concentrate on long term vehicle and brand quality, where as Mulally will concentrate on logistical and company management.

[Electric-Mayhem]

Originally Posted by KaJuN

Yeah I know not just anyone can run a big company. It just irritates me that people can be brought into leadership positions then cut wages, benefits, jobs, etc. without having gone through the same crap the guys at the bottom live with every day. Being hired on as a leader is the most un-American thing I can think of.

Thats actually a very American thing if you ask me. Seems the norm for the typical American Corporation. Not saying that I like or agree with it, but the minds of Capatalists often don't care if somone has spent their entire lifetime working up to gain something. Either way, whoever it was that got the job would still have it handed to him, even if it was from within instead of an outsider. Could be good or bad, only time will tell.

JH

[ishigakisensei]

if workers have to take a pay cut, then it only makes snes that the leadership who ran the company into the ground also take pay and benefit cuts. Don't ever see that though.

[Burningwick]

Have to agree with this move from Ford. They've done nothing but lose money since Bill took over. They need some drastic changes quickly; or I see them going bankrupt within the decade.

[Paul_The_Aussie]

Originally Posted by ishigakisensei

if workers have to take a pay cut, then it only makes snes that the leadership who ran the company into the ground also take pay and benefit cuts. Don't ever see that though.

Does Bill earn a salary? I heard he earns his $$ from stock in the company. I read this and a few other things (like he sends his kids to public schools, he is a modern hippie, whatever that is) from some article either here in Australia or online just after he was appointed CEO of Ford.