Analysis: What fueled Mark Fields' rise at Ford

• Fields turned around North American operations
• Bill Ford put out the caution flag
• Changes are effective Dec. 1

Mark Fields eased onto the U.S. auto stage a decade ago as some guy from Mazda with a bad haircut and a polite manner.

Thursday, Ford Motor announced he will become COO -- the big automaker's No. 2 slot -- Dec. 1. That makes him most likely to take over when CEO Alan Mulally steps aside, no sooner than 2014.

"This is not really a transition we're announcing," cautioned the automaker's chairman and member of the namesake family, Bill Ford. Rather, he said, Fields' elevation is part of top-level shuffling to get a strong team in place to take over post-Mulally. "Don't read anything beyond that into this," Ford said.

At the very least he gave Fields and the other newly polished brass the inside track to replace Mulally: "I've said in the past I prefer it come from inside. We have a very strong team," Ford said. "I'd be surprised if it didn't come from inside."

Outside analysts believe, despite Bill Ford's demurral, that Fields, in effect, has until the end of 2014 to lose the CEO job.

"It doesn't mean (his ascension to CEO) is absolutely going to happen," says David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research and a long-time industry observer. "The idea would be to make the COO into a position where he has global responsibility, a higher level than he's had" running what Ford calls the Americas, the car company's operations in North, Central and South America.

It's hard to remember, now that North America is the profit machine and Europe's the problem, but when Fields was named president of the Americas in 2005, it was a bloody mess, like the whole company.

Ford lost $30.1 billion from 2006 through 2008, then earned most of it back -- $29.5 billion -- the past three years, mostly due to Fields-run North American operations.

Fields did a tour as executive vice president of Ford of Europe, so he could have the insight to help turn around that market. But if he doesn't, it could count against him.

Ford last week announced plans to close three factories there, two in the U.K. next year and one in Belgium in 2014. But it still forecast another $3 billion in Europe losses before an expected rebound at mid-decade.

"Mark Fields is the natural choice for the COO post at Ford. He is an excellent strategist with a deep understanding of all facets of the company," says Jesse Toprak, vice president of market intelligence at TrueCar.com.

Not always the impression. When Fields moved from CEO of Ford-controlled Mazda in 2002 into closer orbit around the Glass House (corporate headquarters at Dearborn, Mich.), his 1980s hairstyle, called a mullet, was a lightning rod for dismissive comment.
He even kicked off a lunch with reporters at the New York auto show by joking, "Aren't you going to ask me about my mullet?"

Bill Ford acknowledged Thursday, in a conference call discussing the executive changes, that "Mark took a lot of heat internally and externally as he made the changes that needed to be made" to fix North American operations. "There was all kinds of speculation about whether he was" tough enough to reconfigure a big part of hidebound Ford Motor.

Bill Ford personally recruited Mulally, who joined the automaker from Boeing in 2006, and the chairman made plain that Mulally's shoes are big ones for Fields or anyone to fill: "I obviously really love Alan. I've never enjoyed working with anyone so much as Alan, and I'd like him to stay forever."

But developing a good executive team to carry on is the mark of a good company, he said.

Bill Ford said the board made the decision Oct. 19 and at that time set Thursday as the date for the announcement. The change takes place Dec. 1.

Fields' move is accompanied by changes that establish an array of executive vice presidents who will report to him -- including two men who have been considered his most likely rivals to replace Mulally. They are:

• Joe Hinrichs, who was named executive vice president and president of The Americas, taking over from Fields. Hinrichs has been group vice president and president of Asia Pacific Africa.
• Jim Farley, named executive vice president of Global Marketing, Sales and Service and Lincoln. Farley has been a group vice president, adds operating responsibility as the senior global leader for Lincoln. He is to to be invovled in what Ford calls "the re-invention of Lincoln as a world-class, global luxury brand."

Mulally's only direct reports, in addition to Fields, will be the offices of corporate counsel, human resources and the chief financial officer. Fields will be running the automaker's day-to-day operations in his new job.

Mulally said he will begin to "take a little longer view" of how Ford can prosper amid huge changes in markets, vehicles and regulations.

A key contribution Mulally made to the car company, Bill Ford said, is shifting it to a culture of cooperation and teamwork. "I've seen the before and the after, and the culture that exists here today is so much healthier. Nobody wants to go back to the days of backbiting and empire building," Bill Ford said.

Fields took an unnatural path to becoming a natural choice.

He butted heads -- almost literally -- with powerful Ford finance chief Don Leclair, the man who engineered the daring mortgage of the entire company in 2006, the first big move Mulally oversaw after coming to Ford.

Borrowing before lending dried up in the recession raised enough cash that Ford didn't need to endure a government-scripted Chapter 11 reorganization like those that bailed out General Motors and Chrysler.
"Leclair had the wisdom to get credit when it was available. It was a huge thing he did," says Cole.Taking him on could have been suicide, but Fields did it.

At a meeting of top executives in 2006, Leclair was demanding Fields spend less on a key ad campaign."When you run the f------- business, you can do it," Fields responded. "But you don't run it. You're the CFO. So, I'll take your counsel, but that's it," according to the book "American Icon," by Bryce G. Hoffman, a reporter for the Detroit News.

"You're going to do this," Leclair shouted, according to the Hoffman account. Fields stood and probably would have slugged Leclair, but then-CEO Bill Ford grabbed Fields and shouted that the men should "cut it out," Hoffman says in the book.

"In Ford, they had these internal fiefdoms where they beat up on each other," verbally if not physically, says Cole. "They'd fight like cats and dogs."

Fields was first to break that pattern and switch to the cooperative teamwork that Mulally demanded when he moved over to run Ford from Boeing.

At Mulally-mandated Thursday executive meetings, the chiefs were supposed to report both problems and successes. Mulally told USA TODAY in an interview that, week after week, the bosses told him all was rosy. Mulally wasn't buying it: "Guys, we're losing billions."

Fields 'fessed up to a problem -- issues with a tailgate latch that were delaying the launch of the Ford Edge SUV that he was overseeing.

Such confessions simply weren't done at Ford then. But Mulally began clapping, literally applauding Fields, asking the others how they planned to pitch in and help resolve the problem.

That was so foreign at Ford that it still took weeks for other executives to begin acknowledging their own issues.

"Mark was one who quickly realized this was the way to run the business. The CEO is a head coach and the important thing is how the team performs," Cole says.

He says Ford has a savvy and active board and, if Fields doesn't meet expectations, the directors won't hesitate to pick someone else as CEO.