Early retirement may sound like a dream to many a PHer, but for Ford CEO Mark Fields retirement came rather earlier than he had hoped. As in last Sunday early. The 28-year Ford employee, and man long groomed to take the reins at the biggest of the 'Big Three', endured a turbulent time during his brief tenure at the top. Downward trending sales figures are fairly common across the industry, but Ford's have declined a staggering 30 per cent - and that's despite the F-series pickup remaining the best-selling vehicle in the US for the 35th year on the trot. This, and a perceived loss of ground to new rivals such as Tesla and Google in electric and autonomous car development, saw Ford's share price fall by 40 per cent since Fields took over in 2014. Add to that already heady cocktail his very public toing and froing with 'The Donald' over proposals to make cars in Mexico, and you can see how things reached breaking point.
Now, Fields has already been replaced by Jim Hackett, who made his name as the head of office furniture manufacturer Steelcase - how that bodes for Ford's future products, we'll leave it to you do predict. But indulge us for a second, if you will, and imagine that rather than Mr Hackett, Ford had approached you to take the top job. What would your first step be? And the one after that perhaps? So far we have suggestions ranging from electric transit vans to making Mk 2 Escorts and selling them for £50K a pop!
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