Ford CFO to retire as board reshuffles

Although no specific date has been given for this announcement, Wallace, 55, and Booker, 66, are expected to announce their decision to retire at the next board meeting scheduled for 11 July.

Reports in the Wall Street Journal said ‘people familiar with the situation’ believed that the departure of Booker and Wallace would give chief executive Jacques Nasser an opportunity to review Ford’s ‘complex management structure’. At present no less than 15 company executives report directly to Nasser.

But they insiste that Wallace’s parting with the company after only 17 months in the position was in no way linked to the voluntary recall of 13 million Firestone tyres, or recent industry concerns about productivity and quality at the carmaker.

Wallace has been at Ford since 1971, and was previously the group vice-president of Asia-Pacific operations where he oversaw the restructuring of Japanese affiliate, the Mazda Motor Corporation.

He succeeded John Devine in mid-1999 as CFO as a temporary replacement, when Devine defected to General Motors, before taking up the post in January 2000.