Ford has named James Hackett as chief executive officer, responding to investors’ unease about the U.S. automaker’s stock price and ability to withstand threats from longtime industry rivals and Silicon Valley. Hackett will report to Bill Ford.
Hackett replaces Mark Fields, 56, who “elected to retire” after a 28-year career with the company. Mark Fields spent less than three years as CEO was the first Jewish CEO of Ford Motor. During Fields tenure as the head of the company’s North American operation, he restructured the company’s home unit while working along with Chief Executive Bill Ford and then continued the revamp when Alan Mulally took the helm in 2006. Fields was also prominent in restructuring Ford of Europe and Mazda Motor Corp, which Ford long held a significant stake. He was behind the “Zoom, Zoom” marketing campaign.
Mark Fields becoming CEO helped close a dark chapter in Ford’s history. Henry Ford was a pronounced anti-Semite whose dealings with the Nazis during World War II are well known. In Spring 1920, Ford made his personal newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, chronicle what he considered the “Jewish menace”. Every week for 91 issues, the paper exposed some sort of Jewish-inspired evil major story in a headline. The most popular and aggressive stories were then chosen to be reprinted into four volumes called The International Jew.
Beginning with the rise of Henry Ford II, the founder’s grandson, the company began a noteworthy shift towards hiring minorities in the 1940s. It was not until 1977, under the helm of Benson Ford, the founder’s great-grandson, that a Jewish officer, vice-president Mervyn Manning, was announced at the car manufacturer.
Hackett, 62, joined the auto maker in 2016 and for the past year has led the Ford unit developing self-driving cars and related services. In the past he overhauled furniture maker Steelcase Inc and also turned around the ailing University of Michigan football program.
Hackett, together with Bill Ford, will focus on three priorities:
- Sharpening operational execution across the global business to further enhance quality, go-to-market strategy; product launch, while decisively addressing underperforming parts of the business
- Modernizing Ford’s business, using new tools and techniques to unleash innovation, speed decision making and improve efficiency. This includes increasingly leveraging big data, artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, 3D printing and more
- Transforming the company to meet future challenges, ensuring the company has the right culture, talent, strategic processes and nimbleness to succeed as society’s needs and consumer behavior change over time
