DETROIT – The job of Ford’s new CEO won’t be easy: He will have to shore up the 114-year-old company’s traditional auto business, but also invest in self-driving cars and other projects that could one day make that business obsolete.
Ford thinks Jim Hackett is up to the task. The 62-year-old former chief executive of office furniture maker Steelcase was named to the post Monday, just three days after former CEO Mark Fields told the company he wanted to retire.
Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford, the great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, said Hackett is a visionary who can help Ford modernize and become more nimble. He served on Ford’s board from 2013 to 2016 and became the head of Ford’s mobility unit in March of last year.
Hackett said Ford does many things well but has trouble handling complex strategy questions. He plans to assemble a small executive team that can communicate plans clearly and make decisions quickly. That’s a contrast with Fields, who was a product of Ford’s bureaucratic culture and had 20 people reporting to him.
FILE – In this April 12, 2017 file photo, Ford Motor Co. President and CEO Mark Fields speaks during a media preview of the 2018 Lincoln Navigator at the New York International Auto Show in New York. Ford is replacing its CEO amid questions about its current performance and future strategy, a person familiar with the situation has said. Fields will be replaced by Jim Hackett, who joined Ford’s board in 2013. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File) 
“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 Monday during a news conference at Ford’s world headquarters. “I love that challenge because I know how to do that.”