Ford cites ‘inappropriate behavior’ as chief of North America ousted
Crackdown on Twitter ‘bots’ starts
FORD Motor Co ousted one of its most senior officials on Wednesday over what it called “inappropriate behavior”, adding to the turmoil at a company already struggling to lift its profits and plot a new strategic course.
The official, Raj Nair, had been an executive vice president and the head of Ford’s North American operations since June. He had previously served as Ford’s chief technology officer during his threedecade career with the automaker.
“We made this decision after a thorough review and careful consideration,” Ford’s chief executive, Jim Hackett, said in a statement released by the company. “Ford is deeply committed to providing and nurturing a safe and respectful culture, and we expect our leaders to fully uphold these values.”
In recent months, there has been a wave of dismissals and resignations of powerful corporate officials after revelations about workplace misconduct, including sexual harassment. Nair’s departure from Ford is one of the most prominent ousters outside the media and entertainment industries.
Concerns over the workplace culture at Ford have become a persistent problem for the company. Details of sexual and racial harassment of female workers at two of the automaker’s plants were uncovered in a New York Times investigation published in December.
Ford declined to elaborate on the nature of Nair’s actions, but said that an internal investigation had determined they had been inconsistent with the company’s code of conduct.
The company is expected to move two current executives, Kumar Galhotra and Stuart Rowley, into new posts that cover the responsibilities Nair had as the head of North America, two people familiar with the matter said. Galhotra is Ford’s chief marketing officer and head of the Lincoln brand. Rowley is Ford’s vice president of strategy.
Ford was dealing with turbulence in its executive ranks even before the departure of Nair. Last May, the automaker named Hackett its new chief executive, replacing Mark Fields. Hackett, a former chief executive of the office-furniture maker Steelcase, had been running Ford’s activities related to self-driving cars.
Since then, Hackett has sketched the outlines of a new strategy to guide Ford, although investors have remained uninspired and its stock has slumped. In January, the company reported a decline in profit in 2017, and warned that little improvement was likely in 2018.
“Investors and analysts have been unhappy with the seeming lack of a clear direction for Ford, especially in terms of future mobility services,” said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Autotrader. com. “The pressure is on Jim Hackett to lay out a clear road ahead for Ford.”
Nair, 53, had been seen as a rising star at the automaker, and a potential future chief executive.
He studied mechanical engineering at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan, and joined Ford shortly after graduating in 1987. He worked his way up through the engineering ranks with stints in Asia, where he worked closely with Joe Hinrichs, currently Ford’s president of global automotive operations.
In 2012, Nair was named chief technology officer and head of vehicle development. In that post, he oversaw the development of several important models, including the aluminiumbodied F-150 pickup truck that went into production in 2014. Under his direction, Ford set a plan to develop a fully self-driving car, with no steering wheel, and begin mass production of it by 2021.
Shortly before Hackett was named chief executive, Nair was one of at least four top officials given special stockbased retention bonuses. His package was worth $5 million but was not due to vest until 2020.
After Hackett arrived, Nair was put in charge of North America, Ford’s largest and most profitable region. The assignment, however, was something of a demotion, moving Nair from a global post to a regional job.
In a statement issued by Ford on Wednesday, Nair was contrite.
“I sincerely regret that there have been instances where I have not exhibited leadership behaviors consistent with the principles that the company and I have always espoused,” Nair said in the statement. “I continue to have the utmost faith in the people of Ford Motor Co and wish them continued success in the future.”
His departure came just weeks after Ford announced the resignation of the chief of its operations in China, Jason Luo, who had been hired away from an auto-parts maker only five months earlier. A company official said Luo’s departure had been related to “personal reasons that predate his time at Ford”.
Just a few weeks before that, Ford had been forced to deal with the fallout of the Times investigation of long-standing abuses at two of its plants in Chicago. In August, Ford had reached a $10 million settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in a case related to the plants.
Shortly after the Times published its report, Ford apologised to the workers there in an open letter from Hackett.
In the letter, Hackett declared, “I promise that we will learn from this and we will do better.” TWITTER announced on Wednesday a crackdown on accounts powered by software “bots” which can artificially amplify a person or cause and which have been accused of manipulating the social network during the 2016 US election.
The San Francisco messaging platform said that the move was intended to rid the service of spam-spewing automated accounts, and not aimed at people using the service according to the rules.
“These changes are an important step in ensuring we stay ahead of malicious activity targeting the crucial conversations taking place on Twitter – including elections in the United States and around the world,” Twitter developer policy lead Yoel Roth said in a blog post.
The move was the latest by Twitter to enforce rules aimed at curbing disinformation, propaganda and provocation.
Since the 2016 election, Twitter and others discovered how “bots” had been used to sow political divisions and spread hoaxes.
“One of the most common spam violations we see is the use of multiple accounts and the Twitter developer platform to attempt to artificially amplify or inflate the prominence of certain tweets,” Roth wrote.
“To be clear: Twitter prohibits any attempt to use automation for the purposes of posting or disseminating spam, and such behavior may result in enforcement action.”
Posting duplicative content, replies, or mentions from an array of accounts one controls, by hand or by bot, is forbidden, according to Twitter.
“Bulk, aggressive, or very h i g h - v o l u me a u t o mat e d retweeting” is also banned, along with using multiple accounts to perform automated actions at the service such as following people, Roth said.
A sole exception to the rule was applications designed to broadcast weather, emergency or other public service type announcements, according to Twitter.
Developers were given until March 23 to bring applications into compliance with the tightened rules or risk suspension.
The new crackdown is part of an effort to weed out automated and fake accounts, a move which has rankled some conservative personalities.
Some users reported a sharp drop in followers after Twitter shut down account in the wake of media reports, prompting a series of hashtags on the platform such as #TwitterLockOut and #TwitterPurge.