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Ford woman gets promotion at "Ford's"

By Tom Brown

DETROIT, Dec 19 (Reuters) - A cousin of Ford Motor Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford Jr. is getting promoted at the company that bears their family name.

Elena Ford, 36, who joined Ford Motor in 1995, is the first female Ford family member to go to work directly for the company founded by her great-great grandfather 99 years ago. She is also the first fifth-generation family member to do so.

After years of mid-level communications and marketing positions at Ford, she was appointed brand manager in December 2001 at the company's struggling Mercury division, where sales are down more than 17 percent this year.

Company officials said on Thursday that Elena Ford was now moving up to a senior management position in the international operations division of the world's No. 2 automaker.

"This is a move that broadens her experience," said Ford spokesman Ken Zino, adding that it was a step up that made Elena Ford a "director-level executive."

"She is coming into a management position doing business planning and strategy and international operations," said Zino. He said emerging markets held out the biggest promise of future growth for the auto business and that mapping strategy for markets such as China, India and Thailand would be a major part of the job Elena Ford begins in January.

Zino declined to comment when asked if Elena Ford was being groomed for a future seat on Ford's board of directors, something she acknowledged she was hoping for in an interview with Newsweek magazine in June.

There are currently three Ford family members on the 14-member board, including Bill Ford Jr. and his father, William Clay Ford, who owns the troubled Detroit Lions football team.

THE FAMILY RULES

Concerns have grown that nepotism and possible conflicts of interest between people bound by close business and personal ties could mushroom into full-blown scandals at many companies in today's harsh business environment, with the spotlight on corporate governance issues.

But Wall Street analysts said family influence comes as little surprise at Ford, where the extended Ford family has retained control over the voting stock ever since it went public in 1956.

"It would be a much broader concern if you saw nepotism at play in a truly independent company in a non-controlling environment," said one analyst. "Here we know there's apparent conflicts. It's been set up that way since they came to the market," he said.

"I haven't seen anything that would say there's been this great turnaround at Mercury to justify a promotion," he added, saying the division, which suffers from the same aging buyer base and lack of appeal that led General Motors Corp. to kill off its Oldsmobile division, was seriously in need of an overhaul.

David Cole, a veteran industry analyst who heads the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research, said Mercury's troubles went beyond the scope of Elena Ford's one-year stint at the brand. However, he said her promotion was "no big deal."

"People look at Ford as a family company not in a negative way but a positive way," Cole said. "You still find many Ford, and particularly old-time Ford, employees, that view the company as 'Ford's,' not Ford Motor Company," said Cole.

He noted that many Michiganders use the family-style possessive when talking about one of their state's most storied companies.

"I think there's a very good connection between the family and the employees historically," said Cole, adding that ties between the Ford family and Wall Street were generally good, as well.

"They (the family) are not going to do anything that is a conflict with the interests of the financial community," he said.