It came rather unexpectedly, since, as recently as February, Ford CEO Jim Hackett was saying that "I plan to stay in this job." In the end, things didn't work out exactly as he planned and, at 65, Hackett retires, to be succeeded by Jim Farley. This is the new "chosen one" of the great-grandson of the company's founder, Henry Ford, Bill.
Let's look at two details about 58-year-old Jim Farley (former Ford Europe director) who has been appointed to the position of Ford CEO. This is not just another "manager" who spends his hours on his yacht, enjoying a Martini, but a guy with a great interest in motoring and particularly in Ford, having grown up listening to stories about it.
His grandfather, Emmett Farley, after all, had worked for the company's founder, Henry Ford, at Ford's River Rouge Plant since 1914. He was one of the workers who assembled Model T. How life happens... Would Henry Ford ever have imagined that his great-grandson would one day hire the grandchild of one of his employees to head the company in 1914?
Emmett Farley with the current CEO of Ford, somewhere in the 80s. His grandson says he imagines him walking into the factory with his kit to build a Model T...
The right person, in the right place. Without exaggeration, this is a "sick" petrolhead. He says that "the most relaxing thing I've ever done in my life is car racing". His favorite, is a 1966 Ford GT40, worth over $3 million. And this, not a garage queen, but the "weapon" with which he goes racing, not to win, as he has said, but as an "antidote to the pressures of everyday life and work".
Farley at work with the GT40
The detail is that, as he has explained, to get it, he sold everything. "It made sense to want the ultimate Ford. So I sold everything. Every car I had, golf clubs, everything, everything. And I got it."
Okay, he's always had the bug. Suffice it to say that his parents, from when he was still a kid, called him Jimmy Car-Car, because of his... obsession with cars; an obsession that led him to a formidable career in the automotive industry, first at Toyota, where he worked for Lexus, played a role in the launch of Scion, and then Ford.
From a young age he had a thing for Mustangs. He didn't change growing up
Since the age of 14 he has been obsessed with cars. That's when he took a nearly wrecked 1965 Mustang, rebuilt it like new and resold it, doubling his money. Still in high school, he had acquired a Mustang, which he drove without a license in the desert, spending what money he had and didn't have on gasoline. And, at home, he watched hours of car racing. From then on, he made a... habit of it and, slowly, his garage was accumulating cars. Until he... emptied it out to fill it up with the GT40, at which point his wife thought he'd gone mad.
His involvement with racing came in 2008, when a friend of his sold him a small-block Cobra with racing pedigree. He took it to the track to enjoy it, as he explains, and quickly got his racing license because, as he says, "it's one thing to be told how to start and another to be at 225 mph spinning around the track with 40 Cobras and Corvettes all around you."
He quickly discovered that the Cobra was not the safest car in the world and the transition to "I only drive a Ford". He picked up a classic Lola T298 two-litre-powered Ford-Cosworth BDA pistodriven Lola T298 that "was much faster and safer", which he drove to third place in the 2014 Le Mans Classic before retiring due to mechanical failure. He then got a second Lola, which he raced for eight hours a day, on weekends, until his great four-wheeled love came into his life: the GT40.
Farley says he respects people with dirty clothes and greasy hands. That's what his grandfather was like, after all. But he's not a "soft" man. "The real guy," they call him at Ford, because he's frighteningly foul-mouthed, loud-mouthed, but also ... irritatingly honest. In that honesty, he says that we shouldn't be afraid of technology, that autonomous cars won't replace driving, but will help those who need them. And we, too, expect a lot from him.
Back to the outgoing Hackett - who will continue to provide consultancy services to Ford. Hackett says now was the best time for this transition to Farley. That's because the company has the momentum from recent new model introductions (such as the Mach-E, Bronco and Kuga, which were well-received) and has performed better than expected during the coronation season.
"The wind in our sails is starting to pick up," the outgoing CEO said during the transition announcement. "Jim (Farley) had a big part in that and I can be confident that the things I've been asked to do are really starting to get on track."
Hackett had, in recent times, been criticized for lack of transparency and leadership as well as for the execution of his multi-year restructuring plan which aimed to increase profitability by focusing on more core products, fully electric and autonomous vehicles. According to some, Bill Ford was unhappy that Ford's stock (which has a market cap of $26.1 billion) has lost 40% of its value under Hackett's management. And, thus, it turned out that the $11 billion restructuring plan failed to impress investors.
In his place, as the fourth CEO in Ford's post-Great Recession history, Farley, until recently the brand's chief operating officer, will take over on October 1. Farley, who joined Ford in 2007 as global head of marketing and sales and served in a number of other positions, including head of Ford's luxury brand, Lincoln, head of operations in Europe and others, beat out the previously "favorite" for the job: Joe Hinrichs, a longtime company executive who left Ford in February.
Farley, who caught Ford's attention not only for his performance in the automotive industry, but also because of his reputation in Silicon Valley. In his first statements as Ford CEO, Farley said he is "optimistic" about the company's growth, promised to grow and expand, and stressed: "We know our competition. It's Amazon, Baidu, Tesla, Apple, Toyota and others." Ford's new CEO is the cousin of comic actor Chris Farley, who died in 1997.
