Fields out at Ford; new CEO Hackett known for turnarounds

Ford is replacing CEO Mark Fields as it struggles to keep its traditional auto-manufacturing business running smoothly while remaking itself as a nimble, high-tech provider of new mobility services.

The 114-year-old automaker said Fields is retiring at age 56 after 28 years at the company. Fields will be replaced by Jim Hackett, a former CEO of office furniture company Steelcase Inc. who joined Ford’s board in 2013. Hackett has led Ford’s mobility unit since March of last year.

In a press conference Monday at Ford’s Dearborn headquarters, Hackett said Ford does a lot of things well, but is not as good at handling complex strategy questions.

Hackett plans to have a small executive team that can set the company’s plans, communicate them clearly and make decisions quickly. That’s a contrast to Fields, who had 20 direct reports and was a product of Ford’s bureaucratic culture.

“The biggest challenge I had (at Steelcase), and I will have here, is to have everybody see the future. They can see their opportunity in that. And secondly, that it’s our right to win and we don’t have to cede that to anybody, Tesla or any of them,” Hackett said. “I love that challenge because I know how to do that.”

In three years as CEO, Fields began Ford’s transition from a traditional automaker into a “mobility” company, laying out plans to build autonomous vehicles and explore new services such as ride-hailing and car-sharing. Silicon Valley companies such as Google were pushing into the car business, while Uber and Lyft threatened to change people’s attitudes toward car ownership. In fact, it was Fields who put Hackett in charge of those projects as head of mobility.

Under Fields, Ford achieved a record pretax profit of $10.8 billion in 2015 as SUV and truck sales soared in the U.S. But there were rumblings that Fields wasn’t focused enough on Ford’s core business.