2010: Top 15 Industry Newsmakers of the Year
By Dale Buss December 29, 2010Industry leaders good at casting visions and those who excel at cleaning up dominated the news in 2010.
As the U.S. auto market chugged definitively out of the Great Recession, visionaries such as Volkswagen's Martin Winterkorn and Fiat's Sergio Marchionne helped prove that robust plans, and personalities to match, can still drive the industry.
Just as important for 2010, however, were newsmakers who fulfilled niche but crucial roles in pulling the industry out of one of the toughest markets in history, such as General Motors' Dan Akerson and Steven Rattner, the former federal auto czar.
Here's our list of the Top 15 Newsmakers of 2010, in alphabetical order:
Johan De Nysschen
Audi is part of Volkswagen's new strategy for world domination, but the company's luxury brand has made the U.S. market its proving ground - and De Nysschen has been leading the way. The chief of the brand's North American operations has leveraged a stream of new products, and positioning around "green" Turbo Direct Injection diesel-powered models, to a market-share uptick for Audi - and has fired a warning shot past BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the process.
Jim Farley
At first it could be argued that Farley's success after joining Ford as CMO in 2007, from Toyota, was mainly a matter of good timing.
But Farley demonstrated in 2010 that he is a key part of Ford's renaissance, with a handful of smart marketing gambits: social-media promotion that boosted Fiesta's launch, for instance, and a hard veer into promoting Sync and other dashboard technologies that Americans love. Farley was rewarded in August with Ford's first-ever global CMO position.
General Motors CEOs
Ed Whitacre (left) and Dan Akerson formed a tag team at the top that got General Motors out of the wilderness and well into recovery. Craggy veteran telecom executive Whitacre took the baton from the federal government and got a bailed-out GM back to profitability. Financial expert Akerson came in shortly before the company's November IPO that netted $22.3 billion, presumably for a longer term as CEO, and kept momentum going by retaining Whitacre's team.
General Motors Marketing Chiefs
After overhauling its financial structure and keeping a stream of excellent new products uninterrupted, GM began straightening out its messy brand architecture in 2010. Gone were Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer and Saab. First, Susan Docherty took a crack at the job and came up short. GM North America chief Mark Reuss then nabbed Joel Ewanick from Hyundai, by way of Nissan, to become GM's new CMO -- and by December, Ewanick was global CMO.
Carlos Ghosn
Both Renault and Nissan faced challenges in their respective European and Japanese home markets -- and abroad as well -- but Ghosn focused on a major long-term bet: getting squarely behind all-electric vehicles.
Nissan Leaf is only the first; Ghosn also committed to three other EVs for Nissan / Infiniti and four for Renault over the next four years. Ghosn and lieutenants also worked tirelessly with governments, utilities and others to establish a viable EV-charging infrastructure globally.
Ray LaHood
Toyota executives may have thought the biggest bogeyman in America was the UAW's sitting president, but they found out instead it was U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood.
He loudly held Toyota's feet to the fire beginning with the first safety recall in January, including a loutish exhortation to Americans to "stop driving" Toyotas.
As transportation chief, the former long-time Republican congressman also has made a priority of reducing "distracted driving."
Bob Lutz
The long goodbye finally ended in 2010 for Lutz, GM's affable, larger-than-life product czar and vice chairman who finally, actually retired.
After a celebrated stint at Chrysler and then a stop at Exide, Lutz came to GM in 2001 with the sole objective of enabling the company to turn out great automobiles again. He overhauled R&D and design -- and wrote his own blog. The new Camaro, SRX, Equinox, Regal and many other models testify to his success. The 78-year-old finally could take his leave.
Sergio Marchionne
It was a head-scratcher for many industry watchers in 2009 when the Fiat chairman asked to take Chrysler's carcass from what essentially was U.S. government receivership.
After a year of reorganization, Marchionne's latest pickup finally demonstrated his genius in 2010. The new Jeep Grand Cherokee kicked off a planned stream of new products, including a U.S. version of the Fiat 500. And Chrysler overall showed new life, gaining nearly a half-point of market share.
Alan Mulally
These days, Mulally is the unchallenged de facto leader of the domestic auto industry in the United States, having steered Ford to record market-share gains in 2010 and giving every reason to think the automaker's momentum will only build in 2011.
It's easy to forget now that his arrival as Ford's CEO in 2006, from Boeing, was greeted with broad skepticism, as was his taking on the vast private debt that allowed Ford to avoid the temptation of a federal bailout in 2008.
Victor Muller
Saab sales slowed to a trickle in 2010 after the end of ownership by GM, but new owner Spyker Cars NV, a Dutch sports-car maker, has been readying a re-launch.
Spyker Founder and CEO Muller heads the combined enterprise and has promised a renewal of the famed Swedish OEM.
He believes new products such as the 9-5 sedan will lure back enough of Saab's 1.8-million-owner customer base in America, on which Saab will still rely for about one-third of global sales.
President Barack Obama
Sure, he was basically along for the ride in 2009 when veteran hands orchestrated federal bailouts of GM and Chrysler. But in 2010, the president mainly kept his promise not to intrude in the business resurrections of the two companies, and his hands-off approach paid off.
Just as important, though, Obama was decidedly interventionist in promoting electric and other green vehicles as the industry's future and was a symbolic frequent visitor to EV and battery plants around the country.
Steven Rattner
The investment banker and former auto reporter came out with a memoir of his days heading the U.S. government task force that took GM and Chrysler into and out of bankruptcy, spiced with details such as Rattner's own disappointment that Whitacre didn't stay at GM longer.
In November, Rattner entered a different spotlight when New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued him for alleged kickbacks involving Rattner's former investment firm, the Quadrangle Group.
Akio Toyoda
This was a year of unprecedented unwelcome developments for Toyota. The spate of safety recalls began in January and continued through December.
A glaring paucity of new products also undermined the company once known for doing everything right. As CEO, Toyoda choked out apologies and promises to a U.S. Congressional committee and began rewriting Toyota's playbook.
It amounted to a rough first year as chief for the amateur racer and grandson of Toyota's founder.
Martin Winterkorn
It used to be the fight for world automotive domination mainly pitted GM against Toyota. But in 2010 - just as those two companies were teetering - Volkswagen Chairman Winterkorn boldly embraced his company's full intention to become the global top dog in sales by 2018.
He backed that up by building VW's first U.S. plant in a quarter-century, investing heavily anew in operations in Germany, and launching a planned cavalcade of 70 new models globally through 2011.
Jerome York
The man who ranked as one of the industry's greatest realists - and oracles - died at 71 years old in March. York held top executive posts at Chrysler and Ford and was a central player in Chrysler's early-Eighties turnaround. Later he teamed with Kirk Kerkorian to try to take over Chrysler and, a few years ago, to prod GM into downsizing and shedding brands. York predicted a government takeover if The General ignored his prescription, and that's exactly what happened.
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