Alan Mulally, Ford Motor Company CEO (and my hero,) named 2010 Man of the Year by Automobile magazine
If you have ever had the opportunity to hear Alan Mulally speak, then you will understand where I am coming from. If you haven’t had the opportunity, then you do not know what you are missing (and I suggest you rectify this as soon as possible.) He is charismatic, intelligent, and quick on his feet. He is also a hard worker, and someone who knows how to get the job done. As CEO of Ford Motor Company since 2006, he has reworked a culture that was developed over decades of people being content with doing their job with a “good enough” attitude.
The magic he performed at FoMoCo kept the company from taking a Federal bailout like crosstown rivals GM and Chrysler and it also prevented Ford from filing for bankruptcy (like said rivals did early in 2009.) For these reasons, and for pushing his teams to produce world class vehicles such as the 41 mpg Ford Fusion hybrid, Alan Mulally was named Automobile magazine’s 2010 Man of the Year. Congratulations Alan! Check out the full story at Automobilemag.com.
(Image source: Ford)
Ford’s Alan Mulally was interviewed by Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today Show yesterday. Alan was fearlessly probed by Matt about the state of the auto industry, and more specifically its domestic rivals, GM and Chrysler. Alan did a great job avoiding those questions and stuck to stating how awesome Ford is and their laser-focused goals.
What the heck did Lauer expect!? For Alan Mulally to simply throw GM and Chrysler under the bus? This isn’t Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla Motors) we’re talking about.
And let me state this once and for all: Ford is not at a disadvantage because they did not take government support. Ask any automaker (or anyone with common sense) about whether they’d rather be in bankruptcy or not!
Woah, check this out; Alan Mulally twitters (is that a new verb yet?) on Twitter!
Twitter is a major social networking website/service (for those that didn’t know that already), and Ford has its own account. Alan occasionally spends time answering people’s questions using Twitter, which makes him one of the only (if not the only) major CEO’s doing this.
Pretty sweet! Track Ford’s and Alan’s progress at http://twitter.com/Ford.
Alan Mulally received a 37% paycut, board member changes at Ford
Ford CEO Alan Mulally (The Torque Report)
Ford’s CEO Alan Mulally, the man behind the transformation taking place at the number 2 American automaker, has taken a 37% pay cut between 2008 and 2007. Ford has also announced that Mulally will take an additional 30% pay cut for 2009. While this all sounds like a lot, Mulally will still take home millions. However, from my perspective, the work he is doing at Ford is working, their cars are coming out at the top of their respective classes, quality and fuel economy are improving at leaps and bounds, and they have yet to take government loans like the other two domestic automakers.
In other news, two additions have been made to the Ford board of directors. House Majority leader Richard Gephardt and Anthony Earley (chairman and CEO of DET Energy Co.) were added to fill spots vacated by members who “no longer had the necessary time to serve.” For the full story, head on over to Autoblog.
Alan Mulally and Bill Ford
Ford Executive Chairman William Ford Jr. and Chief Executive Alan Mulally released a memo stating that they were voluntarily accepting a 30% reduction in their salaries over the next 2 years. Ford’s board of directors will also forgo the cash portion of it’s members’ compensation this year. Performance bonuses for salaried employees and senior executives for 2009 will be eliminated, on top of the bonuses that were removed for 2008. The news comes one day after Ford reached a tenative agreement on new concessions from its hourly workers. It’s nice to see the upper management making cuts too, not just cutting jobs and the pay of the people below them, hopefully it works out for all parties involved. For the full story, head on over to the Wall Street Journal.
