The transformer king

Many departing CEOs of car companies have left big boots to fill. Among the largest were those of Ferdinand Piëch. His vision, ruthless ambition and ability to deliver in the 22 years – 1993 to 2015 – he was CEO and then chairman of the Volkswagen Group made it a multi-brand Skoda-to-Bugatti global powerhouse.

At 28 years old in 1945, Henry Ford II had to rescue the once-revolutionary company his grandfather had built but left crippled by a decrepit, autocratic culture and enormous, galloping losses. Alan Mulally, CEO from 2006 to 2014, saved Ford in the 2008–09 financial crisis yet didn’t quite match Hank The Deuce’s legacy.

Eiji Toyoda, architect of Toyota’s lean production and globalisation, set his followers the Herculean task of sustaining excellence at scale. His cousin Akio, ace driver and grandson of Toyota’s founder Kiichiro, duly protected and refined Eiji’s legacy when he became CEO. Now, as chairman, he too will be difficult to follow. At Honda, innovative maverick Soichiro Honda’s successors struggled to retain the ethos he created. And look at Chrysler after turnaround genius Lee Iacocca retired; or Fiat after its saviour, Sergio Marchionne, died in 2018.