Jim Hackett, who took over the automaker in 2017 and led an effort to modernize its historic but financially distressed operations, will retire Oct. 1, Ford said Tuesday. He will be replaced as president and chief executive officer by COO Jim Farley, who will now be responsible for propelling the automaker through the remainder of the COVID-19 pandemic, boosting its competitiveness with high-tech rivals and continuing to improve. . around the lingering effects of the Great Recession, more than a decade ago.
Farley, 58, has “great instincts for the future and new technologies that are changing our industry,” Chief Executive Bill Ford said in a company announcement, also thanking Hackett “for all he has done to modernize. Ford and prepare to compete and win in the future.
Shares of Ford are down nearly 40% since Hackett’s tenure began, and shares were up 1.5% Tuesday after the CEO transition was announced.
Farley has been Hackett’s heir since February, when Ford promoted him to chief operating officer. A lifetime in the industry spending the first half of his career at Toyota and joining Ford in 2007, he has since held various positions overseeing the company’s strategy, global marketing and operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. . During a conference call Tuesday, he emphasized his plans to leverage Hackett’s work to increase Ford’s competitiveness among fierce and less traditional rivals.
“We know our competition today. They are Amazon, Baidu, Tesla, Apple, Toyota and others, ”Farley said during a conference call with reporters.
After replacing Mark Fields, who also lasted for three years, Hackett was tasked with cutting costs and modernizing the automaker known for its founder’s invention of the assembly line.
With his emphasis on design thinking and high-tech innovations, including an electric Mustang, Hackett was a slightly unusual choice for a Ford CEO. (At least, among white men with short names.) “Hackett is the closest thing to an intellectual the executive suite is likely to see, a strategist obsessed with so-called design thinking as a model for doing business,” said Adam of Fortune. . Lashinsky wrote in a profile from 2017.
But “no matter how smart his ideas are, Hackett has yet to distinguish himself financially,” Lashinky wrote 18 months later, adding that “Hackett can only last that long if the company’s stock remains a single-digit embarrassment. trading at less than $ 9 per share) “.
Today, Ford’s stock is trading at less than $ 7 a share. And the clock seems to be starting on the Ford CEO’s next attempt to push it forward, and the future of the automaker.
