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Green CEOs and good business just don’t mix. Witness this past week’s embarrassing examples of Ford Motor Co.’s Bill Ford and BP’s Lord John Browne – with General Electric’s Jeff Immelt warming up in the bull pen. ... Ford always appeared more concerned about being green than being profitable. In May 2000, he declared that SUVs – his company’s most profitable product – harmed the environment. He lectured a Greenpeace audience that something needed to be done about global warming. Ford focused on turning the company’s massive Rouge plant into an “icon of lean, green manufacturing” and issued reports about...

Ford Motor Co., in a surprise move, reached outside the auto industry to name senior Boeing Co. executive Alan Mulally as its new chief executive officer. Current CEO William Clay Ford Jr. will remain chairman of the auto maker. Mr. Mulally, 61 years old, a Boeing executive vice president who heads its important commercial airplanes division, will take the Ford president and CEO post immediately as the struggling auto maker prepares a vast restructuring of its unprofitable North American business. "Clearly, the challenges Boeing faced in recent years have many parallels to our own," Mr. Ford said in a...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ford Motor Co. Tuesday surprised the auto industry by tapping senior Boeing executive Alan Mulally as its new chief executive officer, succeeding current CEO Bill Ford, who will stay on as chairman. Mulally, 61, who heads Boeing's commercial airplane unit, will become president and CEO of Ford immediately as the struggling automaker gets set to unveil a huge overhaul of its North American auto operations. Mulally was most recently executive vice president at Boeing .

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co Chief Executive Bill Ford Jr is prepared to let someone else lead the carmaker his great-grandfather founded should the right manager be available, he said in a magazine interview. "I'm always looking to bring talent into this company. If I can find somebody -- I thought Carlos (Ghosn) was an exceptionally talented executive who could help the company -- I'll go get him. That is regardless of the position," Ford told Newsweek in an interview posted on the magazine's website. Asked if that applied to his own job as well, Ford replied: "Absolutely." Ford...