Ford Announces More Management Changes--2nd Update
25 Maio 2017 - 05:29PM
Dow Jones News
By Christina Rogers and Tim Higgins
Ford Motor Co. has wooed back a senior engineer who left the
auto maker to develop autonomous vehicles at Uber Technologies
Inc., underscoring the Detroit auto maker's determination under new
leadership to wrest back the lead from Silicon Valley on new
technologies.
Sherif Marakby returns to Ford as vice president responsible for
the company's self-driving and electric-car businesses, the auto
maker said Thursday as it announced a raft of top management
changes under new CEO Jim Hackett.
In this new role, Mr. Marakby will oversee companywide profits
and losses for these business lines, part of a broader effort by
Ford to highlight for investors the earnings potential of the
company's new emerging technologies.
Mr. Marakby's departure from Ford in 2016 for Uber was seen as a
stark example of traditional auto makers losing top talent to
Silicon Valley racing to develop robot cars. The promise of
autonomous vehicles, though still unproven, threatens to upend the
estimated $2 trillion of annual revenue tied to the automotive
industry in the U.S.
His return to Ford is a symbolic victory, and signals an effort
by Mr. Hackett to install a prominent engineer into a key role
designed to bridge various departments and execute its vision for
self-driving cars.
The 114-year-old auto maker announced earlier this year plans to
invest $1 billion into startup Argo AI that was co-founded by Bryan
Salesky, a leader among autonomous development from Alphabet Inc.
Ford has targeted putting an autonomous vehicle for commercial use
on the road in 2021.
"The problem was that there was no one to communicate how Argo
could evolve into a revenue stream for Ford," said Dave Sullivan,
an analyst for consultancy AutoPacific. "Marakby will have to work
on communicating on all of the items Ford has invested in since he
was last there in regards to how they can translate into revenue in
the future."
Mr. Marakby wasn't available for comment.
Mr. Marakby's tenure at Uber should have given him insight into
how some of the leading developers of self-driving cars work, and
could help him smooth a divide between the corporate suite in
Dearborn, Mich., and the upstart tech culture at Argo AI.
As Argo has beefed up hiring, several people have come from the
ranks of Uber, especially its Pittsburgh operations, according to
LinkedIn bios. Argo's co-founder and chief operating officer, Peter
Rander, for example, worked at Uber to bring out the ride-hailing
company's self-driving test vehicles.
Mr. Marakby's departure from Uber in April came as the company's
autonomous-vehicle program became shrouded in trade-secret theft
allegations from Google parent Alphabet Inc. Uber is contesting the
lawsuit, which alleges the company conspired with a former Google
engineer, Anthony Levandowski, to steal self-driving car secrets to
jump-start its own efforts. Mr. Levandowski, who hasn't commented
about the allegations, has since stepped aside as head of Uber's
autonomous-vehicle program, putting its future in doubt.
Besides the hiring of Mr. Marakby, Ford also announced Thursday
that product chief Raj Nair will take over North American
operations, a region responsible for nearly 90% of the company's
profits, and Steven Armstrong, Europe's operating chief, will be
elevated to run the region, replacing Jim Farley, who was named the
new global markets president Monday.
Peter Fleet, a longtime marketing executive, will take over
Asia-Pacific operations, a vital region including China, from Dave
Schoch, who is retiring after 40 years. Purchasing chief Hau
Thai-Tang will add global product development to his role, the
company said.
The moves highlight how Mr. Hackett, less than a week in the new
job, is restructuring the management team to be more agile with him
having fewer direct reports than his predecessor. Many of these
executives will now report to either Mr. Farley, or Joe Hinrichs,
Ford's new global operations chief.
In naming Mr. Hackett to the top job, Ford Chairman Bill Ford
has emphasized the need to move faster and make harder decisions if
the 114-year-old auto makers is to compete in a quickly evolving
business facing encroachment from new tech rivals in Silicon
Valley.
"The clock speed at which the world is moving and our
competitors are working really requires us to make decisions
faster," Mr. Ford said, speaking to reporters earlier this
week.
Mr. Ford is counting on Mr. Hackett, a former office-furniture
executive with a record for turning around ailing organizations, to
sharpen the company's strategy and re-energize its workforce amid
shrinking profits and plateauing U.S. sales volumes.
Write to Christina Rogers at christina.rogers@wsj.com and Tim
Higgins at Tim.Higgins@WSJ.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 25, 2017 16:14 ET (20:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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