Business & Professional

4*,

Mark Fields leans on one of

Ford Europe's big names.

Ford First

Bill Carroll
Special to the Jewish News

hen Mark Finkelman
was a youngster in
New Jersey, he was
fun-filled and carefree with few
responsibilities — and he loved
to play with his collection of 100
mini-cars.
Now, at age 44, as Mark Fields,
he's the highest-ranking Jewish
executive in the global automo-
tive business — with plenty of
responsibility. He has been pro-
moted to Ford Motor Company
executive vice president and pres-
ident of the Americas, meaning
he's responsible for the develop-
ment, manufacture, marketing
and sales of the Ford, Lincoln and
Mercury brand cars and trucks in
North and South America.
Fields has achieved a reputa-
tion as a "turnaround" expert
with a "disciplined business
mind" during his meteoric rise
through Ford's hierarchy over his
16 years with the world's second
largest automaker. He has been

W

J.'

October 13 2005

dubbed inside Ford as "a real
comee Chairman Bill Ford called
him "one of our most experi-
enced, capable and proven lead-
ers, with high-level experience in
all of our most critical automo-
tive operations:'
Fields' promotion is part of the
company's second major restruc-
turing in three years in an
attempt to reach Bill Ford's target
of a pretax profit of $7 billion in
2006. Although the company
made $950 worldwide in the sec-
ond quarter this year, North
American operations lost $907
million, and officials said they
would cut an additional 2,700
white-collar workers and close
some plants.
Ford has had a variety of prob-
lems in the past few years,
including lukewarm sales, a
shrinking market share, a droop-
ing stock price and various prod-
uct woes, including one of the
largest recalls in its history —
3.8 million light trucks and SUVs
to fix a potential fire hazard.

Jewish executive named to turn around Ford
Motor's North and South America divisions.

The company is counting on
Fields to accomplish another
turnaround, as he has done with
several Ford components during
his Ford career — but all outside
of North America.
And no matter where he travels
around the world, his family in
New Jersey still sends him pack-
ages of matzah and Chanukah
candles to remind him to keep up
Jewish traditions. Fields and his
wife, Jane, have two sons,
Zachary, 10, and Max, 8.
Fields' career has been a classic
tale of being in the right place at
the right time. He became a bar
mitzvah at a Conservative syna-
gogue in Paramus, N.J., and had
an introverted personality in high
school. With an economics degree
from Rutgers University and an
MBA from Harvard, he entered
the work force with IBM.
"I'd always been interested in
marketing and sales because they
deal with people, and you can
quickly see the results of your
actions:' he said in a previous

Jewish News interview.
With that experience, he joined
Ford in 1989. "The company
looked attractive, and I loved
cars, so Ford was a perfect fit for
me," he said.
He held managerial positions
in California, Dearborn and
Detroit, living briefly in
Farmington Hills and
Birmingham — then headed
overseas.
In 1996, he became assistant
managing director of Ford
Argentina in Buenos Aires, then
managing director a year later
when his predecessor there
became ill. He turned the affiliate
from a $100 million loss to a $2
million profit.
After that, it was off to Japan
for several posts at Mazda (Ford
owns one-third of that company),
eventually becoming assistant to
the president. Only a few weeks
later, the president and CEO
retired because of ill health and
Fields moved right to the top. He
closed a plant, trimmed jobs,

focused resources in the right
direction and made Mazda prof-
itable.
Fields then went through a
number of top jobs at Ford of
Europe and Ford's Premier
Automotive Group (Jaguar, Volvo,
Land Rover, etc.) had a pre-tax
$17 million profit in the second
quarter of this year, compared to
a $347 million loss in the same
period last year. Ford of Europe
posted a pre-tax profit of $114
million in 2004, reversing a pre-
tax loss of $1.1 billion in 2003.
Automotive News, a national
industry publication, still is skep-
tical, calling Fields "young and
unproven." But Fields isn't wastl
ing any time exerting his authori-
ty in his new job. He told indus-
try analysts at the Frankfurt Auto
Show that 50 percent of Ford's
parts now will come from low-
cost countries —twice what it's
buying today.
It sounds like another turn-
around.

.

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