See How They Run
There seems to be trouble in River City—I mean Toyota City—as key American executives are leaving for greener pastures. Greener, that is, undoubtedly in terms of the amounts of money that they're getting.
First there was the highest-ranking gaijin in the organization, Jim Press, who'd been president and COO of Toyota Motors North America and senior managing director of Toyota Motor Corp., who went over Chrysler LLC as its vice chairman and president. Certainly going from the world's largest vehicle manufacturer (or maybe that hasn't happened yet, with, perhaps, GM still at number one, but give it a day or so) to number three of the once Big Three is something that one doesn't do before the Brinks truck arrives at the front door.
And yesterday, Ford Motor Company, the so-called Blue Oval that ought to change its official color to red, given the ink of that color its financial people are using on reports, announced that it has hired former Scion and Lexus brands head Jim Farley to become its group vice president of Marketing and Communications. Let's see: Ford doesn't have a youth brand—or even a youthful product—and its idea of luxury is apparently a variant of the Ford Fusion (a.k.a., Lincoln MKZ) or the Ford Expedition (a.k.a., Lincoln Navigator).
Must be one hell of an advantage to have the word "Toyota" on your resume.
