Executive Chess
Although this may be all-too "inside baseball," it is interesting to note that the line on Chrysler's hiring of Jim Press, the highest-ranking gaijin at Toyota, a 37-year veteran of the company that has kaizened its way to the top spot in global automotive production, is that Chrysler's owner, Cerberus, a private equity firm, is showing that it is not going to, as the parlance has it, "flip and strip" the company.
Sure. And they're going to donate all profits from the sales of their vehicles to charity.
Those guys are good at what they do, and what they do is make money. Not cars and trucks and minivans. Money.
The company has also hired Phil Murtaugh, an ex-GMer who managed to make Buick the number-one vehicle in China, which tells me that he must be a veritable miracle-worker.
All of which is to say that there is something of a "dream team" at the top of the pentastar.
But why does this indicate any long-term thinking? Let's say that the plan is to sell off divisions. Wouldn't it be good to have a guy like Press, who is one of the most engaging and affable guys in the industry, who is heading sales and marketing as part of his new portfolio, working a deal with, say, GM for the Jeep brand? GM could combine it with Hummer and essentially corner the market on crazily capable vehicles. And Murtaugh's bona fides are gold-plated in China, so what about the possibility that they'd flip the Chrysler brand to Chery Automotive, the Chinese OEM with which they've already inked a deal to supply B-class cars?
Or it could be that Cerberus is just going to show that they've got the muscle, moxie and money to kick ass in Detroit and elsewhere where cars, trucks and minivans are sold?
