Ford CEO named by Newsweek as one of "World's Greatest Auto Disruptors"

[whynot]

If you hate EV and believe that ICE are the way of the future, turn away, close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears ...

For our inaugural awards honoring the World's Greatest Auto Disruptors, Newsweek is honoring individuals and companies that are using technology to drive transformative change in the industry. What all of our winners have in common: They are in the forefront of the movement to bring the cars of today into the digital future, and are doing so in ways that benefit both consumers and their companies' bottom lines.

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EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR
Jim Farley

President and CEO, Ford Motor Company

Ford president and CEO Jim Farley's grandfather worked on the line that built the Model T more than 100 years ago. Now Farley has been tasked with advancing the Ford family legacy of auto disruption and innovation into the twenty-first century by moving the company to the forefront of the industry's digital future.

The steps taken in 2021 to push Ford forward toward this goal, blending the company's storied history with goals around sustainability and digital innovation, are why Farley is Newsweek's Auto Disruptors Executive of the Year.

Farley has introduced electric vehicles starting with iconic nameplates: Ford Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning and Lincoln Zephyr. Those models can be modified without stops at dealerships. Their connected technologies allow for digital range, suspension and handling upgrades wirelessly.

"This digital transformation has ripped its way through business and, after years of talking about it, it's finally arrived in our industry. I think Tesla deserves a lot of credit for their acknowledgment of the shift more than 10 years ago," Farley tells Newsweek. "We call that 'Always On' at Ford. You're always improving the product, you're always talking to the customer. It's not this episodic thing when you buy a car and if something breaks you go to the dealership—those days are over."

Interconnectedness is key. "For us, 'Always On' means that yes, it's a digital powertrain with electrons but, more importantly, the electrical architecture shifts to an embedded system like the phones," Farley says, holding up his Apple iPhone.

To gain insight into the process, Farley talked to the chief executives of General Electric and Sysco, big companies also going through digital transformations. "They all had the same drumbeat," he says. "During the transition, supply chain becomes really important. And don't ask your team to do too many things. That really resonated with me."

Those conversations led to a fresh way of doing business at Ford, including the launch of two new divisions: Ford Blue and Ford Model e, which work separately to innovate current (Blue) and future (Model e) products. It's part of a push to disrupt the industry quickly.

"Watching my team struggle with this change to digital product," Farley says, "it became very clear to me and the leadership team that the only way to make this go faster, and to catch up to where customers already are, is to create an innovation team."

Rest of the article and the complete list of other disrupters is available on the Newsweek web site.