Chryslerberus is just full of surprises. First they unexpectedly demoted replaced Tom LaSorda with Robert Nardelli as CEO. Now Bloomberg reports that Jim Press, former President of Toyota Motors in North America is joining the dark side the Cerberus team as Chrysler's Vice Chairman and President. Press, the first non-Japanese to head TMNA, will "be responsible for North American Sales, International Sales, Global Marketing, Product Strategy, and Service and Parts for Chrysler LLC." Tom LaSorda, who is also Vice Chairman and President, will be responsible for "Manufacturing, Procurement and Supply, Employee Relations and Global Business Development and Alliances." It looks like they may have about one President too many. We hope LaSorda has his golden parachute strapped on nice and tight.
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dumb question here, but shouldn’t the head of Manufacturing, Procurement and Supply and Employee Relations all be different people? The four things that his is now head of seem to be worlds apart. Granted they are RELATED but the guy breathing down your neck, trying to get more production should not also be the guy that deals with employee relations.
Just a thought.
This seems to be a coup for Chrysler as Press was on the “fast track” with Toyota….a company that apparently can do no wrong.
I really do not think it can be spun any other way unless one really can’t admit anything positive can happen for a domestic manufacturer
Being the first American on the Toyota Board of Directors didn’t count for a whole lot I guess. That must have been one heck of a signing bonus!
I’m also surprised he didn’t have a non-compete clause. Crazy.
LaSorda will do just fine with his parachute. I’m gonna predict $50 million.
If Press can bring some sanity to Chrysler’s product line, he’ll be worth the mega-salary he’s bound to be making. I just wonder what he’ll think about having to drive a Chrysler product after driving Toyotas for 37 years.
I do feel sorry for LaSorda, though. After having his hands tied for so many years by his German overlords, it looked like he’d finally be able to show what he could do. Then Cerberus screwed him over. And keeps screwing him over. They seem to keep inching his desk closer and closer to the parking lot. It may be time for him to beat a graceful retreat, if that’s still possible.
What’s going on at Toyota that Press would leave with a spectacular career? Press has been riding a wave for so many years, why would he consider doing grunt work at 60?
Dr.Z gave LaSorda a bullet proof contract with a money padded ejection seat. The challenge for LaSorda is to swallow his pride, and hope that the powers to be at Cerberus push the ejection button. Cerberus is hoping that LaSorda hands in a letter of resignation, since they are using the “ejection button money” to get new people.
Bernhard was prescient to get out, when he did.
Frank….why feel sorry for LaSorda—he’ll make a bucket of money that will set his family up for generations.
As far as him being screwed–welcome to the real world—-welcome to corporate America.
“Um, Mr. Press, I think thats my stapler…” “Ok Tom, I’m just going to have to go ahead and have you move down to the basement, we need to clear out some room here in the corporate offices, so if you could just grab your stuff and head down there, that’d be great.”
AGR: “What’s going on at Toyota that Press would leave…”
Toyota pays its execs Japanese style (modest) salaries. Cerberus will pay him something with eight figures, perhaps fifty times what he was pulling down at Toyota.
Once again…it’s all about money. I agree with Paul here. Exec salaries have not been as globalized as supply chains, and Europeans and japanese pull a lot less money. Main reason: public outrage at huge salaries.
Americans reason differently: they see it as an incentive for them to work harder to try to achieve the same level of economic success.
Don’t know much about Press’s career, but money apart, he’ll need all the skills he has. Not that Toyota is easy, but Chrysler can turn into hell any instant!
“Is LsSorda being pressed out of a job?”
Yes.
In other news, the sky is blue and the grass is green.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
I could make a dozen different comments but I’ll just say this – WoooHooo!!!!!!
If this guy (and his old company) are as good as everyone seems to think he is then their is some hope for Chrysler.
In regards to press and Toyota: Press was never going to be the CEO of Toyota, no matter what he did for them. And people of his caliber (no pun intended) are not satisfied with playing second or third fiddle.
Also Nardelli is not in this for the long term. He will turn things around, be remembered as the guy who saved Chrysler (again) instead of the guy who screwed up Home Depot, and sail off into the retirement sunset richer than Chronos.
In Jim Press your’re looking at the future CEO and Chairman of Chrysler.
Ahh I just made a comment on the other feature about this same thing, good luck to LaSorda
Sammy B :
September 6th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Being the first American on the Toyota Board of Directors didn’t count for a whole lot I guess. That must have been one heck of a signing bonus!
I’m also surprised he didn’t have a non-compete clause. Crazy.
the Toyota Way de-emphasizes personalities in favor of the company.
Oh to be a fly on the wall at Toyota HQ in Japan right now (well, that and to be able to speak Japanese)! You have to wonder if Mr. Press was getting heat over Project Money Pit/Tundra or that he was running into the joys of being “gaijin”.
It will be fun to see what factor Mr. Press had in Toyota’s success in NA and whether his departure will hurt.
I just wanted to throw this out there as I really have a hard time believing that Mr. Press has decided to just up and leave Toyota for what could be an upside so large his children’s children couldn’t piss away the fortunes…
The theory:
Mr. Press is making the move to lay the groundwork for what may become an outright buyout of Chrysler by Toyota to leverage additional manufacturing capacity & pursue that % of market share unpenetrable by Toyota due to the hard-core faithful that will not abandon American product. Examples would include:
–> Tundra’s re-skinned as Dodge Ram’s
–> Tacoma’s as Dakota’s
–> The Jeep brand
I know what I am purporting is blasphemous to some, but Mr. Press is a dyed in the wool Toyota man and there just has to be more to this then money for Press. He is too entrenched in Japanese culture and thinking to pursue this for financial gain.
Just my thoughts…
suspekt
I would not be suprised if there is far more than meets the eye with this situation.
Something very fishy is going on here with Cerebus/ Chysler and Toyota. I get the impression that Toyota would love to get its hands on the manufacturing remenants of a bankrupt Chysler. I also get the impression that Cerebus is not in the auto industry for the long haul and would love to do a bust up and sell off of Chysler once bankruptcy puts the UAW and dealerhip issues to rest.
While this line of thinking could be totally off base I think I can see what Toyota can achive by gaining control of what is or was Chysler in the near future. Control of Chysler could give Toyota the means to become an undeniable force in the NA light-truck market. Toyota could also dominate fleets sales in NA and not damage its core brands. Control of the Jeep brand would also eliminate Toyota main competition for the 4WD/off-road segement, it would also give Toyota control of what is truly the last successful domestic brand name.
If Toyota could manage to maintain a decent percentage of a bankrupt Chysler production workforce(non-Union), Toyota will be in a much better position to wave the American patriotic flag and deflect a good deal bad press in this country.
Now will the heavy weight on this site please tell me that this senario is total BS and Cerebus/ Toyota are not secertly in bed with each other.
Perhaps I am the odd man out here, but to me it makes some sense to have the top sales and marketing executive and the top operations executive be two different people, each reporting to the real boss. I have never met a brilliant sales & marketing person who was also a brilliant operational manager, or visa-versa.
Perhaps there is a bit of title inflation going on to keep the egos happy and in most situations these positions would be called Executive Vice Presidents, but the title really doesn’t matter.
I wouldn’t automatically count LaSorda out. If they are paying him well then he certainly has an interesting job to do.
I think Chrysler’s real strategy is to move as much production offshore as possible as fast as possible without disrupting the existing sales base. If so, this will show up as union negotiations where the only real gotta-have for the company is the flexibility to close factories and let people go. Wages and benefits for those who remain will be argued about, but are not likely to be the real issue. Smart negotiators downplay their gotta-haves and play up secondary issues so that when it comes time to compromise they can “give up” what are really their secondary issues while protecting the few gotta-haves. Having one top guy playing both sides of this chess board, union negotiations and outsourcing contractor, actually makes some sense.
Suspekt,
Althought plausible, I reckon it’s extremely unlikely. Toyota love organic growth and have normally shied away from acquisions. Even if Toyota were to takeover Chrysler, it would render the whole exercise pointless, because Chrysler would be an Japanese company and, therefore, be a turn-off to rednecks patriots.
Also, while we’re on the subject let’s think about this:
Toyota’s top man switches sides to allign himself with their enemy. But it turns out he’s just a mole to plot a takeover by the side he always was playing for.
WWE wrestling would love a story like that! I wonder if they’ll install Vince McMahon as CEO? ;O)
For the record, I won’t discount Suspekt’s theory because stranger things have happened in the auto industry. I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time Chrysler got taken over by a foreign carmaker, would it…..?
Jim Press is only human. After toiling under the rising sun, head bowed humbly for decades he decided he didn’t want to be a worker bee for the rest of his life. There seemed to be a lot of PR about him the last year-Forbes and Auto-snooze, wonder if that didn’t irritate his superiors. Although my take is that he isn’t is as good as everyone thinks, but that Cerebus took him just to show the auto world that they could. Kind of like banging your boss’s wife, not because you are attracted to her, but who she is.
Lots of possibilities.
The most basic would be Press getting most of a huge paycheck guaranteed up front and 3Dawg gets to slap a Rolex Seiko label on for a quick sale in a little better neighborhood.
The one thing these guys are good at is coming up with new ways of putting lipstick on pigs and selling them when the lights dim at closing time.
A few weeks ago Chrysler hired Deborah Wahl Meyer from Lexus, now Jim Press from Toyota.
There is more than meets the eye, and there could be a myriad variations and theories.
Have you ever though the reason Cerebus did this was to try to put together a proven management team to run the company?
Naa..
Hope I don’t sound too cynical here, but my guess is that Mr. Press was hired as a “star” so that Cerberus can run the stock up and get their money out before selling off the assets and going bankrupt. As is customary for American business, the image is far more important than the substance. With Press in the management team, Cerberus can “Enron” their way to good returns, then put the remains in the dumpster as Icahn did with TWA.
As for Press, he’s not any different than other execs who are lured by money to preside over crap. Most of us have a price and for many years Press’s price was the association with Toyota’s ascendance in the U.S. market. Now he’s done that and it’s time to finance his retirement homes and his own fleet of high performance aircraft. DB did make a valiant effort and produced a couple of decent cars followed by more crap (Sebring/Avenger, Nitro) incapable of interesting the public in new Chrysler vehicles.
Chryslerberus will lay claim to their own “car czar” and we’ll have Lutz vs Press competition for most vaporific claims about mediocre vehicles.
Occam’s Razor argues that big, big money and a challenge are sufficient to explain Press’ move to Chrysler.
As for Chrysler, it looks like a good investment. Remember, it took Toyota two tries to establish the brand in the US. The first time, the car was so bad even they admitted it wasn’t competitive and retreated to Nippon. Today, Chrysler is somewhat like the early days for Toyota: in a struggle to get people to discard doubts/fears about quality, performance and resale, and to give Chrysler a try. Press has been there and done that.
Americans reason differently: they see [generous executive compensation deals] as an incentive for them to work harder to try to achieve the same level of economic success.
While that may be partly accurate, the fact that many of these executives receive their golden parachutes after performing miserably (e.g. Nardelli at Home Depot) indicates that incentive to do well is non-existent. They know they will get paid millions no matter what.
Landing a high-paying, benefits-laden, life-time compensation package is mostly luck, connections, and timing and has little to do with ability.
While nearly everyone here seems to be drawing a reference to the situation when the Germans took over in 98 with dual CEOs in Schrempp and Eaton, I see it differently. It has been well noted that particular partnership was doomed due to distance and culture differences. It’s not like Press is in an office in Tokyo doing voice confrencing with Nardelli and LaSorda in Auburn Hills. I still see LaSorda sticking around for a while, seeing as how his specialty is in union relations and manufacturing. If he doesn’t produce results with more of the people Cerebrus has surrounded him with, then I can understand him being pushed out. It’s still too early to read an entirely accurate answer.
Today Chrysler picked off GM’s top man in China:
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/newsanalysis/automakers/10378416.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
This fits with my theory that Chrysler is going to morph as rapidly as possible into a designer and seller or cars, but with the manufacturing outsourced to the low cost provider. As I’ve been saying, most US consumer product companies as well as much of the industrial products sector went this way in the past decades and it fits with Nardelli’s most recent background.
KatiePuckrik -“Even if Toyota were to takeover Chrysler, it would render the whole exercise pointless, because Chrysler would be an Japanese company and, therefore, be a turn-off to rednecks patriots.”
Wow. Thanks Katie. Just because I love my Jeep and plan on purchasing another I’m now a redneck. Oh sorry, you said patriot. And yes I would drop the Jeep brand like a hot turd if Toyota took over because it wouldn’t be a Jeep anymore.
I don’t think LaSorda is being pressed out (nice title). He and Press have perfectly complementary skill sets. What I foresee happening is that the current triumvirate will make the company suitable for sale, and once sold Nardelli will be gone. Then you’ll have Press as Chair and CEO and LaSorda as Predident and COO.
From what I can gather, Press and LaSorda are both team players who won’t let their egos get in the way of making this set-up work.
Or course, I could be wrong, and LaSorda could be gone next week. Time will tell.