[ZTWsquared]

Just one day after he was quoted as saying he would readily step down as President and CEO if the right guy to replace him was available .... Bill Ford does just that.

Automotive News Update Wrote:DEARBORN, Mich. -- Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) announced today that it has elected Alan Mulally as president and chief executive officer. He has also been elected to the Board of Directors.

Bill Ford will continue his duties as executive chairman of the company.

"One of the three strategic priorities that I've focused on this year is company leadership. While I knew that we were fortunate to have outstanding leaders driving our operations around the world, I also determined that our turnaround effort required the additional skills of an executive who has led a major manufacturing enterprise through such challenges before," Bill Ford wrote in an email to Ford employees today.

"That's why I'm very pleased to announce that Alan Mulally, who turned around the Commercial Airplanes division of The Boeing Company, will become our president and CEO, effective immediately. Alan has deep experience in customer satisfaction, manufacturing, supplier relations and labor relations, all of which have applications to the challenges of Ford. He also has the personality and team-building skills that will help guide our Company in the right direction."

Bill Ford, who said he would remain "extremely active" in the business, praised Mulally as "an outstanding leader and a man of great character." He noted that Mulally had applied many of the lessons from Ford's success in developing the Taurus to Boeing's creation of the revolutionary Boeing 777 airliner. That experience, chronicled in the book, "Working Together," by James P. Lewis, tells how the leadership principles Mulally learned from Ford and developed at Boeing may be applied to other businesses.

"Clearly, the challenges Boeing faced in recent years have many parallels to our own," Bill Ford said.

Mulally, 61, has spent 37 years at The Boeing Company, most recently as executive vice president. In addition, he has also been president and chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes since 2001. In that position he was responsible for all of the company's commercial airplane programs and related services, which in 2005 generated record orders for new business and sales of more than $22.6 billion. Mulally was named president of Commercial Airplanes in September 1998. The responsibility of chief executive officer for the business unit was added in March 2001.

"I think the opportunity to work with Bill Ford and Ford Motor Company is the only thing that could have attracted me to a job other than Boeing, where I have so many great friends and memories," Mulally said. "I'm looking forward to working closely with Bill in the ongoing turnaround of this great Company. I'm also eager to begin engagement with the leadership team. I believe strongly in teamwork and I fully expect that our efforts will be a productive collaboration."

Mulally noted that many of the challenges he encountered in commercial airplane manufacturing are analogous to the issues at Ford.

"Just as I thought it was appropriate to apply lessons learned from Ford to Boeing, I believe the reverse is true as well," Mulally said. "I also recognize that Ford has a strong foundation upon which we can build. The Company's long tradition of innovation, developing new markets, and creating iconic vehicles that represent customer values is a great advantage that we can leverage for our future."

Bill Ford said he expected Mulally would assist Mark Fields and the Way Forward team as they accelerate their business plan.

"After dealing with the troubles at Boeing in the post-9/11 world, Alan knows what it's like to have your back to the wall -- and fight your way out with a well-conceived plan and great execution," Bill Ford said in his note to employees. "He also knows how to deal with long product cycles, changing fuel prices and difficult decisions in a turnaround."

Prior to his current position, Mulally served as president of Boeing Information, Space & Defense Systems and senior vice president of The Boeing Company. Appointed to that role in February 1997, he was responsible for Boeing's defense, space and government business.

Beginning in 1994, he was senior vice president of Airplane Development for Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group, responsible for all airplane development activities, flight test operations, certification and government technical liaison.

Mulally serves as co-chair of the Washington Competitiveness Council, and sits on the advisory boards of NASA, the University of Washington, the University of Kansas, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. He is a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of England's Royal Academy of Engineering.

Mulally holds bachelor's and master's of science degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the University of Kansas, and earned a master's in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a 1982 Alfred P. Sloan fellow.

A member of the board since 1988, Bill Ford, 49, was elected chairman in September 1998, and took office on Jan. 1, 1999. He also serves as chairman of the board's Environmental and Public Policy Committee and as a member of the Finance Committee. He was named Chief Executive Officer on Oct. 30, 2001.

Bill Ford, who led the Company to three straight years of profitability through 2005, told employees in his email that he looked forward to an excellent working partnership with Mulally on global strategic issues.

"Let me assure you: I'm not going anywhere," Bill Ford wrote to Ford workers. "As executive chairman, I intend to remain extremely active in the direction of this Company. I'll be here every day and I will not rest until a prosperous future for this Company is secured."

[D-Dub]

this is pure jokes!!

61 years old come on, you need to have someone younger that has experiance in automobiles.. What this means is more bland cars from Ford with major corners cut for faster production output and savings in costs.

They should have brought over the guy that runs Ford Of Europe cause at least they're cars are selling.

[Frost__2001]

I agree with D-Dub, Ford Really should bring over some of their people from their own company in their Global Family, from Europe and Austraila, because these two markets are really growing still, and they have some really great products that would do fine here.

ie.

Fiesta for the Sub-Sub compact market
Falcon for a performance sedan
S-Max for the Sub Minivan Market
Galaxy for the minivan market
Focus MK2 to replace the dated american focus to compeat with the Corolla & Civic

[FocusGuy7476]

think that Ford made a hiring Alan Mulally for President and CEO, he's not been tainted by the auto industry, yet has turned around a successful division in a much larger industry.

i'd give the guy a chance before making a final decision about him.

[euro_zx5]

FocusGuy7476,Sep 6 2006, 11:51 AM Wrote:think that Ford made a hiring Alan Mulally for President and CEO, he's not been tainted by the auto industry, yet has turned around a successful division in a much larger industry.

i'd give the guy a chance before making a final decision about him.
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Seeing as i'm optimistic, i'll agree with ya... and I hope your right, for Ford's sake.

[darkpuppet]

D-Dub,Sep 6 2006, 02: Wrote:this is pure jokes!!

61 years old come on, you need to have someone younger that has experiance in automobiles.. What this means is more bland cars from Ford with major corners cut for faster production output and savings in costs.

They should have brought over the guy that runs Ford Of Europe cause at least they're cars are selling.
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that's like saying Lou Gerstner designed the look of IBM products when he was in power there (hence why you see so many vacuum tubes in the RS6000s).

Or even if you agree that an old CEO actually designs and chooses the entire product line, then you can at least agree that Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, who is 60 didn't screw up with the Ferrari f430 or enzo...

A CEO runs the company, and the product offerings are more about the CEO hiring the right people to make those decisions... Maybe he will bring the global branches closer together... we can't say because he's barely been in power.

And we really have to stop comparing ford NA with Ford Europe...Europe is a totally different market than NA... driving is a privelege in europe, not a right like it's perceived in NA.

[ANTHONYD]

Call Roushe up.

maybe he's not doing anything.

[Drivesthebeast]

The problem isn't at the very top in my opinion. It's in the executive and junior executive areas. The people who are afraid to take risk when required. Build the people what they want, they will come.

[NOS2Go4Me]

Why can't we drive what they drive in Europe?

Please don't lump me in with the knuckle-draggin', gas-guzzlin' SUV and luxobarge drivers south of the 49th parallel (and a pile north of, too!). I appreciate the privilege of driving and I think that we should be given the opportunity to drive "real" cars.

[FocusGuy7476]

NOS2Go4Me,Sep 6 2006, 06:04 PM Wrote:Why can't we drive what they drive in Europe?

Please don't lump me in with the knuckle-draggin', gas-guzzlin' SUV and luxobarge drivers south of the 49th parallel (and a pile north of, too!). I appreciate the privilege of driving and I think that we should be given the opportunity to drive "real" cars.
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ask the government about that, not ford.

as for the lumping of markets, the canadian and american automotive markets are totally different. look at whats the best selling car, truck and SUV in both markets. think you may be surprised with the results

[ANTHONYD]

Bill Ford's Vision:

----------------------------------------------------------

Bill Ford outlines 3-point plan to employees
Posted Sep 3rd 2006 3:59PM by John Neff
Filed under: Trends, Ford, Earnings/Financials
In an effort to assuage the fear of his employees over the current direction of Ford Motor Company, Bill Ford sent out a company-wide memo on Friday that details a three-point strategy for ushering the Blue Oval out of hard times. The Detroit News describes the strategy in a nutshell as 1) fixing Ford's North American business, 2) leveraging the company's global assets, and 3) bolstering its leadership team from within and outside the company. Easier said than done, right?

In the memo Ford admits the business strategy that fueled Ford for decades has stopped working (i.e. a myopic reliance on trucks and truck-based SUVs). In order to achieve profitability again in North America, Ford has charged Mark Fields and his team with developing products that drive revenue and rapidly reducing costs, as any CEO should we think. Mazda and Volvo will also apparently contribute more to Ford's North American turnaround than they have in the past. Ford's last point about leadership development is already in practice, as the aforementioned Mark Fields, president of the Americas for Ford, has Bill Ford's new progressive policies to thank for his title.

Bill Ford's memo contains nothing that hasn't been suggested before, but its purpose wasn't to unveil Ford's revised "Way Forward" plan, which is due in detail later this month. The note to employees is rather an effort, we believe, to make workers at the company feel more like they're in the loop while Ford wrestles with changing his company's course.