Ford names Kumar Galhotra president of Ford North America

Ford today announced key changes in the company’s leadership ranks after yesterday’s abrupt departure of Raj Nair, former Ford President of North America. Kumar Galhotra will take over Nair’s position effective on March 1. In this post he will be responsible for all of Ford’s North American business and report to Jim Farley, Ford EVP and president of Global Markets.

Galhotra has been at Ford for 29 years — nearly as long as Nair had been at Ford. Since 2014 he lead Ford’s Lincoln division while also serving as Ford’s chief marketing officer since last year.

Ford also announced several other promotions as a result of Galhotra climbing the executive ladder with most notably Joy Falotico taking over for Galhotra’s duel roles as Lincoln chief and Ford CMO.

This shakeup comes after Raj Nair left Ford following a recent internal investigation that found certain behavior by Nair was “inconsistent with the company’s code of conduct.” Nair worked at Ford since 1987.

It seems Ford is cleaning house, too. TechCrunch recently discovered the departure of CEO and co-founder of Chariot, Ali Vahabzadeh, which was acquired by Ford in September 2016. Ford confirmed he was no longer at the company but declined to comment on the nature of his exit. We heard from multiple sources Vahabzadeh was actually fired in early February after employees co-signed a letter to Ford’s CEO James Hackett complaining about toxic work culture and poor employee retention.

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