Hired Guns

FIREWORKS ARE GOING OFF AT CHRYSLER these days, and while it's not July 4, it is about independence.

If you don't already have an office pool going regarding which top-notch executive “The New Chrysler” next plans to recruit for its all-star management team, you may be too late.

One missing piece of the puzzle is a product guru, and that may be the toughest match of all. What is clear is that the reborn auto maker is going after the best and the brightest, and its top executive is not afraid to surround himself with strong leaders.

In a dazzling series of announcements in recent weeks that have astounded even the most cynical industry veterans, the Detroit auto maker recently pulled off the coup heard 'round the world with news Jim Press, Toyota's long-time face to North America, will become Chrysler LLC's new vice chairman and president of North American sales.

Press joins former Lexus marketing executive and Detroit-area native Deborah Wahl Meyer, named vice president and chief marketing officer.

And in another wickedly shrewd move, former General Motors China chief Phil Murtaugh is coaxed away from Shanghai Automotive Co. Ltd. — China's largest OEM — to become Chrysler's front man in Asia.

Along with guiding the surge in one of the world's fastest-growing markets, Murtaugh, the consummate China insider whose GM career spans 30 years, will shepherd Chrysler's crucial but controversial JV with Chery Automobile Co. Ltd. to build small cars for North America.

Press, Wahl Meyer and Murtaugh join Robert Nardelli, newly named Chrysler chairman and CEO whose resume includes stints atop The Home Depot organization and a key division of General Electric.

The moves send a clear signal about the intentions of Cerberus Capital Management LP, which acquired a controlling interest in the auto maker from DaimlerChrylser AG in a $7.4 billion deal that closed in August.

“Cerberus didn't take over Chrysler to be wallflowers, obviously,” says Dennis DesRosiers, president of Toronto-based DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc.

Vice Chairman and President Tom LaSorda, publicly unfazed by Nardelli's sudden arrival, says in a statement he looks forward to “partnering with (Press) and Bob as part of the Office of the Chairman.”

Auto analyst John Casesa, managing partner of New York-based Casesa Shapiro Group, calls Chrysler's action an “amazing” hire. “Jim is a very strong marketing and sales exec, and Chrysler really needs help there,” Casesa tells Ward's.

Dealers were enthused — a welcome reaction considering Chrysler's relations with its nearly 3,700 retailers have been stratined. In the last 12 months, the two camps have had a stormy relationship marked by a 2006 inventory glut that souped the auto maker's profit picture.

“Chrysler arguably has the best manufacturing guy in the world in Tom LaSorda, and it now arguably has the best sales guy in the world, Jim Press,” says Carl F. Galeana of the Galeana Automotive Group, which owns Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep dealerships in Michigan, Florida and North Carolina.

As president of Toyota Motor North America, the 60-year-old Press was the first non-Japanese director ever named to Toyota's board. So what motivated him to leave the industry juggernaut after a stellar 37-year career?

“When you reach a certain point in your career, you really want to look back and say, ‘I helped restore,’” Nardelli says. “Jim's coming at it from that standpoint.”

In Toyota's official press release, CEO Katsuaki Watanabe thanks Press for his years of service and says he was “looking forward to (Press) playing a bigger role as a member of our management team.”

Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers union, suggests Press could bring some insight into “a number of quality and productivity issues” affecting the UAW and the auto maker.

But Gettelfinger's counterpart, Canadian Auto Workers President Buzz Hargrove, says he is “not ready to concede that (Press has) done that much for Toyota.”

“The things that built Toyota are unfair trade practices and the manipulation of the yen,” Hargrove tells Ward's. “If he can do that for Chrysler, I'll be quite happy.”
— by Barbara McClellan, Eric Mayne, Steve Finlay and Christie Schweinsberg