????The guessing game about who will succeed Alan Mulally as Ford CEO moved into the late innings this week with a front-page article in Automotive News. In a story headlined "4 top CEO candidates emerge inside Ford," it speculated on whether Mulally's successor would be an outsider like him or someone already working at the company.
????In fact, insiders say the Ford (F) succession race is all but over, and all that's left is the official announcement. The two big questions remaining: When will Mulally actually retire, and how will Ford handle the transition?
????Executive succession at Ford is one of Detroit's enduring spectator sports. There have been any number of dramatic transitions, beginning in 1945 when Henry Ford II wrested control of the company from his confused grandfather and his thuggish underling Harry Bennett. They include the firing of Lee Iacocca in 1978, the ousting of Don Petersen in 1989, the noisy retirement of Alex Trotman in 1999, and the premature departure of Jac Nasser in 2001.
????With that history, it is not surprising that there has been speculation about Mulally's successor almost since he arrived from Boeing (BA) in 2006 and the noise level has been increasing ever since. In addition to employees and industry watchers, investors are paying close attention. Mulally has presided over a five-fold increase in Ford's stock price in the last three-and-a-half years and Ford is on the cusp of resuming dividend payments. Any surprise about management changes would not be well received.
????Mulally turned a vigorous 66 in August and neither he nor executive chairman Bill Ford has given any hints when he will step down. The pressure on them to make a decision ratcheted up a notch this week with the News story. It wasn't based on any fresh information but instead recycled an unusual interview given more than three years ago by the company's former human resources head Joe Laymon.
????The irrepressible Laymon, who liked to show off his knowledge of the company's inner workings, announced in 2008 that there were six inside candidates at the company to succeed Mulally. One week after that impolitic disclosure, Laymon left Ford. The accuracy of his supposition has never been confirmed.
????Since then, one of Laymon's "Big Six", chief financial officer Don LeClair, has also left the company, and a second, Steve Odell, is busy keeping Ford of Europe afloat during the EU's economic crisis and is thus presumably disqualified from current consideration for the CEO's.
