Italian-Canadian CEO was ‘a giant in the auto industry’
Windsor especially saw Marchionne as a legend after he saved Chrysler and Fiat
Sergio Marchionne, the Italianborn Canadian executive who cemented his legendary status in the automotive industry after successfully turning around two automakers, died on Wednesday. He was 66.
Marchionne died after unexpected complications from shoulder surgery in a Zurich hospital. The news of his death came just days after he was replaced as CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), because his condition had worsened.
Condolences from around the world poured in, with industry rivals, politicians and colleagues offering tributes to the executive.
“He was a giant in the auto industry, a friend of the Italian-Canadian community, and a visionary in the corporate world,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter. “Sergio Marchionne’s death is a huge loss.”
Flags were lowered to half-staff at the City Hall in Windsor, Ont., where Marchionne — a University of Windsor graduate — left an indelible mark for bringing Chrysler back to profitability after it was on the verge of collapsing.
“The legacy that he leaves in Canada is putting a huge investment in the Windsor Assembly plant and saving us from the brink,” said Dave Cassidy, the president of the Unifor Local 444 that represents FCA workers in Windsor.
“He was a legend here. Most executives don’t have that touch with the grassroots, but he really did.”
Marchionne’s first foray into the auto industry was in 2004, when he was tapped to lead Italy’s thenstruggling Fiat. Defying expectations, he steered the company from bankruptcy and made it profitable. In 2009, Fiat merged with Chrysler, turning them into the world’s seventh-largest automaker. With the new company, he once again defied people’s expectations, and recently announced in June that the company had reached zero debt.
“He saw opportunity where weaker people saw the end,” Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturer’s Association, said of the Fiat Chrysler merger.
Marchionne was born in Chieti, Italy, and immigrated with his parents and older sister to Canada at the age of 14. He grew up living above a family-run bridal shop in Toronto, attending St. Michael’s College. His father, who had been a police officer in Italy, founded a local social club for retired Italian police officers.
In a 1999 interview with the Financial Post, his mother Maria — who still lives in Toronto — proudly boasted about her son’s brilliance, and his long academic resume. Marchionne completed an MBA at the University of Windsor, a philosophy degree at the University of Toronto and a law degree at Osgoode Hall Law School. He also held a chartered accountant’s designation.
While the Fiat Chrysler merger and subsequent financial success will go down as Marchionne’s most significant achievement, he was also known for many other things, including his trademark black sweaters and a candid, nononsense attitude.
Take his tough love message for Canadian taxpayers in 2014. At the time, Chrysler was considering making a $3.6-billion investment in Windsor and Brampton, Ont., but it hinged on what kind of economic incentives would be offered to the company from the federal and provincial governments. While making his case, Marchionne said that “everybody ” was competing for the investment and compared Canada to “a guppy in shark infested waters.”
“This is not a game for the fainthearted. It takes resolve, and it takes cash,” he said at the Canadian International Auto Show in 2014. “I am Canadian … I will do a variety of things for this place that twist me into a pretzel. But you can’t put me over a barrel. You just can’t.”
Chrysler eventually made the investment without government aid.
While he didn’t play favourites when it came to investing in Canada, Marchionne didn’t forget about where he grew up, said Unifor president Jerry Dias. During labour talks with the Big Three Detroit automakers in 2016, Dias said that Marchionne was the only chief executive to show up for the negotiations, something he viewed as a sign of his commitment to Canada.
Sitting across from each other in a boardroom, Dias recalled that the discussions were getting heated. The union wanted a firm commitment for a new investment in FCA’s plant in Brampton, and the two “got into a heck of an argument”, Dias said in an interview on Wednesday. “He ended up throwing his passport on the table, and said ‘Come on? You think I’m going to screw over the Canadian operations? I am a Canadian’,” Dias recalled.
“There was no misunderstandings with him. When you finish a discussion with Sergio Marchionne, it’s not as if you were left wondering what he meant.”