Who is fords ceo

Yet he is more demanding than his predecessors and willing to work as hard or harder than anyone, employees say. Farley is candid about challenges ahead — whether he's talking to staff or Wall Street investors. Before, there was a lot of discussion but we didn't see a lot of it being implemented," said Jeff Windau, analyst at Edward Jones.

At times the innovation process can be more nebulous with a lot of thoughts about how the future should look. But you actually have to take actions to drive and get there. Farley has said cutting billions of dollars in Ford's historically high warranty costs is essential.

The recently debuted Ford Bronco had faulty roofs and Ford last month recalled its award-winning Mustang Mach-E for problems related to the windshield installation. Farley, on the day he did a series of one-on-one national news interviews about major battery investments in Kentucky and Tennessee, calmly responded to questions about why the Mach-E had quality issues.

He didn't deflect or blame. We're going to deal with any kind of issue quickly and immediately and completely. Farley's direct approach gets noticed by industry observers who say few corporate leaders so comfortably discuss problems and challenges.

Others did mean it, too. He just comes across as the person who's actually going to take action and follow up and make sure things will get better. Jim Farley has been doing a great job. More: Bill Ford's controversial viewpoint has changed Detroit automaker. It's a dramatic shift at Ford. Industry observers said the financial wounds at Ford were too often self-inflicted and avoidable, and people found fault with predecessor Jim Hackett's cerebral communications style.

Farley has no loud critics in what may be a honeymoon period. People are uncomfortable. Are there people who are probably uncomfortable with that? Farley is visibly prepared for meetings, from product design to product recalls. He wants to hear ideas. He wants to hear about problems. He wants to focus on solutions. Employees say they know they'll be embarrassed if they try to make excuses.

He has the energy of 10 people," said a longtime Ford insider who worked under five CEOs. Farley talks about customers in every meeting.

The issue is not whether people just buy Ford products or know about Ford products but how people feel about Ford and its leadership. Employees say Farley is obsessed with the experiences consumers have. He keeps telling employees to think of customers as family. It's one reason why Ford has implemented unique programs for Bronco customers on waiting lists. Farley engages with the public frequently on social media. And consumers have been known during the past year to reach out directly to top-tier Ford people on Twitter, including the CEO, to get help directly rather than work through customer service.

Dealer markups on popular vehicles have frustrated shoppers in the past but Ford has, until now, taken a passive approach, employees said. They told consumers to work it out. Now, while Ford cannot tell dealers what to charge, the Ford team can help people find different dealers who price competitively. Under Farley they do, employees said. Farley drove home the idea of personalized customer service, a term often dismissed as meaningless happy speak, when he learned of fires in the battery compartment of the plug-in hybrid Ford Kuga in Europe in late He had been CEO fewer than 90 days.

On a crisis management call, the Ford team explained that it planned to send out a letter to alert customers to the safety concern, identify the problem and fix it as quickly as possible. Farley interjected that their plan fell short, that it wasn't doing enough to offer support and a feeling of understanding. He told the team to dramatically rethinkstrategy as if their mother or brother had been affected, rather than a nameless customer.

The team dramatically revised the plan, ensuring that customers had regular communication. Ford joined forums on social media, talking individually to customers and helping them one by one. Employees made videos explaining the problem and how it would be fixed. The company put together "meaningful offers of support" and made sure they had a single point of contact at Ford and assigned a dealer to speed up the process.

More: How a simple box design is saving the auto industry millions of dollars: 'It's amazing'. That specific exchange laid the groundwork for all that would follow in , employees said. They heard what he said and executed on this vision. This is the perspective of an executive trained in marketing. An engineer may say to just build a better vehicle. A marketing guy will understand that a customer expects more, industry observers said.

Moving both retail and commercial to EVs, supply chains, re-architecting the company to be more of a software company. I ask every executive this question. What is your decision-making framework? How do you make these decisions? First thing is, we have to turn around automotive operations. The second thing we have to do is modernize the company. And that means really not just electric vehicles. Investing in advanced electric architectures with embedded software systems and a flexible software system that can adapt to new sensors, using the data off the vehicle to make the quality loop better, and giving the customer better functionality over time with the vehicle.

We have to go really deep on commercial. We are the dominant player globally. What does that mean? That means in the past we had other people do services [like] fleet management, telematics, financing for small businesses for their chargers, charging itself.

We need to vertically integrate. And that means [going] into physical services and digital services for commercial customers. And the last thing we need to do is disrupt ourselves. Three different kinds of businesses, a disrupted per-mile rental model, a commercial services company, and a modernized Ford.

You mentioned iconic brands there. I want to ask this question, and I want you to walk me through it using that decision-making framework. I read every piece about the Mach-E that was written. In about half the articles, the [Mustang] team takes credit for it. It is kind of an interesting story. Like, all the doors open, you can hear the celestial humming, and people get really, deadly serious about a perfect product.

That means it would have to sound different, it would have to go like heck, it would have to handle well. And yes, we could add modern technology to it, not just a bed, but the UX experience inside the vehicle.

But you have to bring your A-game and you have to bring what makes you different as a company. So when the organization got focused on making it a Mustang, everything changed. Literally, everything changed. We went from a pretty generic execution informed by the wind [tunnel], to a complete vehicle that only Ford could do.

I saw it happen. I could see it happen on Bronco, I could see it happen on a lot of our vehicles: when you get the team excited about one of these iconic vehicles, the responsibility and the accountability in the organization changes. All I care about is a great product. One of the things that I noticed about the Mustang when I had it, is it has barely any Ford logos on it. The Bronco has barely any Ford logos on it. F Lightning is a new brand. How does that relate to your positioning Ford?

Our strategy is very simple. They come naturally, we have high intimacy with the customer. Being with F customers to us is like having a barbecue. We know them that well. The Homer had a donut maker and a beer dispenser. If you ask people what they want, you get a Homer. But if you know the customers really well, you can surprise them with 12 kilowatts of power to power their home. One of the big features of the new F, the Lightning included, is BlueCruise, which is a fairly advanced driver-assist system.

It can get you down a bunch of highways. In order to execute that, you need a bunch of mapping software, you need an interface. What is that investment like and what does Google bring to the table that you need there? And so, for [all the] Android customers who want a really good solution, we also want to have the best Apple CarPlay experience too. Look, our industry is filled with people spending. Do I want my team spending hundreds of millions of dollars building a navigation system, compared to what I get on my phone?

I buy a Mustang Mach-E today. Next year, you come out with a version that runs Android. I think, generally speaking, the approach we want to take There will be some transition, where the [system] on the vehicle is just not capable yet, or the embedded software is not capable yet to fully change the customer experience. Android Auto is especially powerful in that regard as well [as] Google Automotive Services.

I think you know I own a F Raptor Gen 2. Every Raptor owner in the forums wants to know: what is the horsepower and torque number of the Gen 3 Raptor? You had to wait for this question at the end. I will tell you that, by the way, the F electric will be faster. So, I have a couple choices of different numbers to give you. And it will change. Because Raptor is an iconic nameplate, too. We did Raptor over 10 years ago and, you know, coming for Toyota desert-racing trucks was a big deal for us.

We have lots of vehicles, but Raptor is very special for us, like the Ford GT. I had to try. All right. Jim, thank you so much for being on Decoder. Ford is viewed by many as being behind others, particularly General Motors, in its plans for autonomous and electrified vehicles as well as global cost restructuring. Ford also must maintain, if not grow, its truck business amid a host of new electric pickups expected from Tesla , GM and startup Rivian, among others.

The company plans to release an electric version of its F pickup in mid Farley, who most recently served as chief operating officer, announced the changes during a virtual town hall meeting Thursday with the company's global team. CFO Tim Stone, a former Amazon executive who was a high-profile hire for Hackett, is leaving the company after just 18 months, the company announced. Stone, 53, is going to artificial-intelligence software company ASAPP as chief operating officer and chief financial officer, Ford said.

He'll be succeeded by John Lawler, 54, who most recently served as CEO of Ford's autonomous vehicles unit and vice president of mobility partnerships. He spent much of his 30 years at Ford in finance leadership and general management. Ford also plans to add new executives as chief information officer and chief marketing officer.