Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally will leave the company earlier than expected and will be succeeded by Mark Fields, the chief operating officer,
the
Wall Street Journal
reported.
Mulally had said he would stay with Ford at least through 2014, the
Journal
report said.
Fields was promoted to COO in December 2012.
A Bloomberg report noted
that Bill Ford, the company’s executive chairman and great-grandson of founder Henry Ford, said on Bloomberg TV April 16:
“A lot of great CEOs leave and then there’s chaos behind them. Alan and I have talked about that — the importance of the final act of a great CEO is having a great transition.”
The Bloomberg report noted that past CEO changeovers have not been smooth at Ford. Henry Ford II fired Lee Iacocca in 1978, and Bill Ford fired Jacques Nasser in 2001. In 2006, Bill Ford hired Mulally to replace himself as CEO as the company faced record losses.
The
Journal
article said that some Ford directors are “still bothered” that Mulally allowed talks with Microsoft Corp., which was seeking a new CEO, to go on for a prolonged period. (Sources:
Wall Street Journal,
April 22, 2014; Bloomberg, April 22, 2014.)
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