BUSINESS	MARCH 2, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 9
	The Ford In Ford's Future Bill Jr. will be the first family member to head the company in a decade. His warm up? Running the NFL Lions By RON STODGHILL II /DETROIT s a homesick American auto executive posted in Switzerland back in late 1980s, William Clay Ford Jr. had an uncompromising Sunday ritual. He would call home to Detroit where his family were invariably watching the Detroit Lions' weekly American football game. If the young Ford dynasty scion engaged in any chit-chat about his broadening world view of the car market, it was brief. A lifelong football enthusiast, Bill Jr. always had a more urgent request: that the phone be placed near the television set so that he, too, could take in the action. These days, as an enterprising vice chairman for the family-owned Lions franchise, 40-year-old Bill Jr. has done everything but carry the ball across the goal line. The role has consumed him since 1994, when he resigned his day-to-day duties at Ford Motor Co., where he remains a board member. But his sporting days may be coming to an end. The Fords are, after all, a clan of industrialists. And company insiders have told TIME that the board of directors will soon name Bill Jr. to succeed Alex Trotman as chairman at the end of 1999, when Trotman retires. Although naming a Ford to head the company sounds like a nonevent--the family still controls 40% of the automaker's voting shares--intrigue at the top is not unusual at Ford. And no one named Ford has run the company since his uncle, Henry II, retired in 1980. Leading a company as large and complex as Ford might seem out of Bill Jr.'s league. His tour through the automaker's ranks has been much abbreviated, and while his track record as a manager is solid, it probably wouldn't merit such a promotion were his last name not Ford. But Bill Jr. won't be alone at the top. According to executives familiar with the situation, the board will also make Jacques Nasser, now president of automotive operations, the next CEO. It's a plan that balances the long-term interests of the Ford family and the more short-term ones of Wall Street. Ford declined to comment on his future but told TIME, "The two of us together would be natural. Jacques and I are very good friends. It doesn't have to be one of us or the other running the company." The two will have to travel far to top the British-born Trotman, a forward-thinking executive who launched the company on an ambitious global reorganization known as Ford 2000, which is designed to transform Ford from a multi-national into a global company where managers anywhere in the world can operate from a single mission statement. Part of the initiative includes aggressive cost-cutting, a drive that enabled Ford to finish up a strong 1997, with earnings jumping 56% over the previous year to a record $6.9 billion. The automaker, which hopes to cut another $1 billion in costs this year, now boasts a solid balance sheet and six of the strongest nameplates in the global auto industry, including Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, Jaguar and Aston Martin. To be sure, Bill Jr. was instrumental in helping Trotman draft another equally critical element of Ford 2000: erasing an unspoken quota system that reserved most of the company's top executive posts for North Americans and replacing it with a fast track for managers boasting strong backgrounds in manufacturing or product development in South America or Europe, key markets for the automaker. As a result, Ford has begun gaining some much-needed momentum in both markets. Despite recent economic problems in Brazil and Argentina, last year Ford squeaked by a small profit of $40 million after losing $642 million in 1996. More importantly, in Europe, Ford's biggest and most competitive market outside North America, the automaker is starting to reverse a three-year slump. While sales in Europe dropped by 20,000 units to 1.8 million last year, and its market share shrunk to 11.4% from 11.8%, the automaker's European unit earned $273 million in 1997, compared to a loss of $291 million in 1996. Indeed, Ford actually managed to increase sales in both Germany and Italy. And the company is not resting there. Hoping to further bolster market share in Europe, Ford plans to launch a mid-sized luxury car, the X200, in early 1999 as well as build a new smaller version of the Jaguar, the X400 or "Baby Jag," at its Halewood Liverpool plant in 2001. "Overall the company is in good shape," says John Casesa, an analyst with Schroder Wertheim in New York City. "The family is happy with what it sees. The company is flush with cash, and there is a feeling that Ford is starting to reassert its leadership in the industry." While the 49-year-old Nasser's aggressive cost-cutting initiatives have made him a darling of Wall Street, the Ford family believes it's critical to have one of their own at the helm to ensure that the company pursues markets and strategies that may not yield a swift payoff but are necessary for remaining competitive in the future. As Bill Jr. puts it, "A Ford has the luxury of managing for the long term." For years, many believed William Clay Ford Jr. to be predestined to reign behind Ford's trademark blue oval nameplate. Genteel, analytical and quietly shrewd, he's a Civil War buff with degrees from Princeton and M.I.T. He joined Ford in 1979 and performed admirably in numerous executive posts, from assembly to product planning to chairman of Ford Switzerland. But in 1994, when he was named chairman of the automaker's powerful finance committee (which holds the company's purse strings), his ascension seemed more certain. That promotion required him to resign his operating role within the company, prompting his move to the Lions, headed by his father William Clay Ford Sr.--also a former Ford executive and chairman of the finance committe. Bill Jr.'s decision two years ago to take over the family's small business, the lowly Lions, may have led to his taking over the big one. For one, he proved that his reputation for being overly diplomatic--read mousy--was undeserved. He not only restructured the Lions operation but in the process took on the National Football League owners, an intractable billionaire boys' club. Sporting a pair of black alligator cowboy boots, he's talking tougher, negotiating harder and mincing fewer words than ever during frequent rants about an industry he says is desperately out of touch with its core consumer. "A lot of these owners have big egos," Ford says. "They like to talk, but few of them like to listen. But they should, because pro sports is in serious danger of alienating the average fan." At Ford's first NFL team owners' meeting in 1995, the opening issue of business was whether the league should take away the Lions' annual Thanksgiving game with its national television audience and give it to a better team. But Ford made a goal-line stand. "This game doesn't belong to you or to us," he fumed. "It belongs to the fans who've been watching it since 1934--which predates most of the franchises trying to take it away." And as if to vindicate Ford's stand, on their Thanksgiving outing last year the Lions terrorized their traditional rivals the Chicago Bears, 55-20. Ford hasn't spared his own organization either. He has shaped a radical restructuring of the team and in the process made it a key component in revitalizing Detroit, one of America's most distressed major cities. Back at Ford, Bill Jr. has already shown some boldness in being a champion for environmental issues. He chairs a new board committee that is reviewing the company's approach to such vital matters as fuel economy and greenhouse gases. Ford lags behind rivals like General Motor Corp. in areas such as electric-powered cars. Bill Jr. views his appointment as progress for a company where "even office recycling was met with resistance." Says Ford: "I can remember when the board asked me to stop associating with the environmentalists. I said, 'Absolutely no.'" Recently he took the podium at the Society of Automotive Engineers' conference and made an impassioned appeal to his audience to work harder and faster on building cleaner cars. Bill Jr. is becoming quite agile at balancing football and cars, and he's even found time to indulge his passion for fly fishing now and then. But the luxury of such leisure will soon be coming to an end. The company has clearly prospered of late, narrowing the once-enormous lead of archrival GM. Still, the Ford that Ford takes over will present plenty of challenges. Trotman's Ford 2000 re-engineering initiative has boosted efficiency. Bill Jr., though, will inherit perhaps an even tougher job of maintaining aggressive cost-cutting initiatives while goosing up the automaker's moribund overseas operations. The company is hardly out of the woods in Europe, still struggling to overcome a costly restructuring in Brazil and Argentina and stumbling in its efforts to snare 10% of the Asian market by 2005. Ford's profits come mostly from the mature markets of North America and Europe but forecasts of double-digit growth in Asia-Pacific markets make success critical there. With nine out of 10 cars sold in Asia bearing Japanese nameplates, Ford's drive is all uphill. Bill Jr. will probably face a far more hostile environment than his predecessor ever did. Still, given his famous brand name, he seems resigned to his fate. And he says he'll be happy to take the risk of leadership. "No matter how things turn out, I'm a Ford," he says. "So I'm not going anywhere else." FAMILY AT THE WHEEL HENRY FORD-- 1903-18 EDSEL FORD-- 1918-43 HENRY FORD II-- 1945-80 --With Reporting by Joseph R. Szczesny /Detroit
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