New Ford CEO replaces CFO, pledges stronger profit margins
On his first day in Ford’s top job, new CEO Jim Farley is replacing the company’s chief financial officer and announcing other structural and management changes
DETROIT — On his first day in Ford’s top job, CEO Jim Farley is replacing the company’s chief financial officer and announcing other structural and management changes.
The company says in a prepared statement Thursday that Chief Financial Officer Tim Stone is leaving Oct. 15 to be chief operating officer at a small artificial intelligence company. Stone came to Ford from Amazon in April of last year.
He’ll be replaced by John Lawler, a 30-year company veteran who has been running Ford’s autonomous vehicle operations.
Farley says in a statement that the company has made progress under outgoing CEO Jim Hackett, but he wants to speed up the transformation.
The company has plans to grow revenue and hit a sustained 8% pretax profit margin. But the statement gave no time frame to reach that goal.
The statement says Ford will expand its commercial vehicle business with new software services. It also plans to offer more electric vehicles around the globe including a fully electric Transit van. It also plans to add more affordable vehicles to its lineup, although no details were given.
