Ford has denied a Wall Street Journal report saying the automaker has started searching outside the company for a successor for CEO Alan Mulally who is expected to retire from his post in the next couple of years.
“The story is false,” said Ford spokeswoman Karen Hampton, saying the company has not sanctioned any external searches for candidates.
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Mulally, who appeared as a guest on the Fox and Friends morning TV news show said, “There’s always going to be speculation about succession plans but it’s absolutely not true.”
“As Bill Ford has consistently said, we will always consider both internal and external candidates for any succession plan, but we do not have a search under way for an external CEO successor,” Hampton said.
As for internal candidates, Ford is considering frontrunner Mark Fields, president of The Americas; Lewis Booth, CFO; Joe Hinrichs from Asian operations; Jim Farley, head of global marketing, sales and service; and Stephen Odell, head of Ford of Europe.
“Any report of discussions with external candidates is false,” Hampton said.
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