Ford Motor Co abruptly named James Hackett as chief executive on Monday, responding to investors' growing unease about the US automaker's slumping stock price and its ability to counter threats from longtime rivals and Silicon Valley.
Hackett, 62, a turnaround expert who for the past year has led the Ford unit developing self-driving cars and related projects, replaces Mark Fields, 56, who spent less than three years as CEO.
Ford Chairman Bill Ford Jr said he wanted Hackett to speed up decision-making and cut costs, but did not offer specifics on how the new CEO should change operations at the US No 2 automaker.
"The clock speed at which our competitors are working …requires us to make decisions at a faster pace," Ford said.
Ford, once the most financially secure of the ‘Big Three’ Detroit automakers, and the only one not to take US government money in the US auto industry bailout a decade ago, reported record profit in 2015, but now finds itself under pressure on all sides as overall US auto sales fall.
Rival General Motors Co is aggressively targeting Ford's share of the lucrative North American truck and sport utility business, the source of 90 percent of Ford's profit.
Meanwhile, investors see Ford as a laggard in the shift toward electric vehicles, self-driving technology and ride-sharing. Ford's $44 billion market value is less than electric car pioneer Tesla Inc's $51 billion.
Bill Ford and other descendants of company founder Henry Ford effectively control the automaker through a special class of shares, but many investors share his concern that the company is running out of time.
Ford shares were up 2 percent at $11.09 in afternoon trading. At Friday's close, they had fallen 37 percent since Fields took over three years ago at the peak of the US auto industry's recovery from the crisis last decade.
(This article has been shortened for length.)
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