Ford Fires Its CEO, and the Blue Oval Turns Its Hopeful Eyes To... Jim Hackett
The dismissal of a CEO of a company as important to Michigan as Ford is a pretty big deal anyway. So a post about Ford firing Mark Fields amidst declining stock price and market share, after a mere three years at the helm, would probably warrant an OT post here.
But, hey, look who putting his cape back on and moving into the office: Jim Hackett.
A college football program might seem like peanuts to a multi-billion dollar corp, and the article only mentions his role here in passing, but let's face it: Hard to believe Hackett's exemplary performance revitalizing Michigan athletics wasn't something that helped show the board that he may be a guy that "gets it."
It looks like Wall Street likes the move.
I'm not so sure this is a long run solution though.
Didn't the guy "want to retire" which is why he quit the AD job? Not a great basis for future success when you pluck your new CEO out of "Jeeze this Michigan AD job is a little too much work" territory.
I hope the stock price gets above my buy point so I can dump it (finally).
Re: Wanting to retire.
I have no idea about this, but after a long run at one company, it's natural for one to think there's not much else to do. Then Michigan called, and while he's not really big on being an AD, he did what he could and needed to, and then exited. It's not that it was too much work, but that it was mostly work that wasn't his cup of tea.
But now his name is in the news and he is getting contacted for opportunities he never had at Steelcase. Perhaps the challenge of working for much larger companies was intriguing to him.
I mean, c'mon. This is a pretty big bump from Steelcase.
I think it's more that he wasn't comfortable enough in an AD role to accept the job on a long-term basis, but clearly he (like a lot of retired businessmen) enjoyed the idea of stepping in on a short-term basis to turn something around.
I wanted to link to this article which uses the Michigan experience as an argument in favor of hiring Hackett:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/business/jim-hackett-ford.html
The reaosn for his retirement from Michigan was because he wanted to spend more time traveling with his wife. Maybe things changed...