City profile

Sergio Marchionne Everyone has their favourite CEOS: Sergio Marchionne, the Fiat Chrysler boss who died last week aged 66, “was one of mine”, said Alisa Priddle on Motortrend. com. A consummate rescuer of companies, Marchionne – “to the amazement of many” – saved first Fiat and later Chrysler, eventually merging them. The combined outfit’s market value rose tenfold over his tenure. However, it is for his other qualities that he will be remembered.

An accountant and lawyer by training, Marchionne was often sniped at for not being a “car guy”. Yet he was “a master at proving his critics wrong”. Eschewing the usual jargon of industry executives, he was “outspoken and relished debate” – filling his speeches with “references to poets and philosophers”, punctuated by the occasional colourful expletive. Marchionne was a maverick with a razor-sharp brain who honed his “bravura” dealmaking skills playing poker with his entourage on sleepless transatlantic flights, fuelled by strong espresso coffee and endless packs of Muratti cigarettes, said the FT. He famously only ever appeared in the same black sweater (he kept piles of them in each of his houses in Michigan, Turin and Switzerland) to save time and allow him to travel with minimal baggage. “Marchionne also loved cars – fast ones in particular.” But, perhaps because he was “an outsider to the industry”, and “never internalised its culture”, he recognised what needed to be done to return a company to health, and “worked relentlessly to achieve it”. His death “leaves a void” – both at Fiat Chrysler and in the auto industry.