Mr Bill Ford Jr executive chairman of Ford Motor said that the next CEO of Ford Motor Co probably will be a company insider.
Mr Ford said that he is happy with CEO Mr Alan Mulally, who has given no hint of when he will retire.
Speaking with reporters during a business conference on this resort island, Mr Ford laughed off a question about Mr Mulally's departure date. He said that "Part of my job is to look everywhere when Mr Mulally does step aside. But I really like our inside talent and I think it would be very unusual if we didn't pick somebody from the inside."
At the company's annual shareholders meeting in Wilmington in May 2011, Mr Mulally brushed aside talk of retirement. He said he thought about stepping down now that the company is profitable.
His retirement is the subject of frequent speculation because he turns 66 in August 2011.
Whenever Mr Mulally decides to step down, Ford has strong depth in its senior executive ranks.
Industry and company insiders said that leading contenders for the job would be Mr Mark Fields, president of the Americas; Mr Joe Hinrichs, president of the Asia Pacific and Africa region; Mr Derrick Kuzak, product development chief; global marketing chief Mr Jim Farley and Mr Stephen Odell, chairman and CEO of Ford of Europe.
Mr Mulally was hired away from Boeing Co to rescue Ford, which was close to bankruptcy at the time. At Ford, he has cut brands, plants and staff and plowed the savings back into cars and trucks that are now hot sellers. Ford sales are up 12% through May, and the company posted its eighth straight quarterly profit in the first quarter. The profit of USD 2.6 billion was Ford's best first-quarter performance in 13 years.
Mr Mulally has been rewarded for his success. In 2010, he received a pay package worth USD 26.5 million, up by 48% from the year before. That included a base salary of USD 1.4 million and stock and option awards valued at nearly USD 15 million.
According to an AP analysis for Standard & Poor's 500 companies, Mr Mulally ranked ninth among the top 50 highest paid CEOs in 2010.
Mr Bill Ford said that Mr Mulally has helped groom potential successors by holding regular meetings with company executives. He added that "It used to be to develop a general manager you would come through a silo like manufacturing, and then very, very late in your career you'd be sort of dropped somewhere else and hoping you could scale up."
But Mr Mulally gives executives access to all the information, all the issues facing the company, and all the opportunities. So it'll be a much better trained group of executives when Alan does decide to leave.
(Sourced from www.chinapost.com.tw)
