New Ford CEO replaces CFO, pledges stronger profit margins

DETROIT (AP) — On his first day in Ford's top job, CEO Jim Farley is replacing the company's chief financial officer and announcing other structural and management changes.

The company says in a prepared statement Thursday that Chief Financial Officer Tim Stone is leaving Oct. 15 to be chief operating officer at a small artificial intelligence company. Stone came to Ford from Amazon in April of last year.

He'll be replaced by John Lawler, a 30-year company veteran who has been running autonomous vehicle operations.

Farley says in a statement that the company has made progress under outgoing CEO Jim Hackett, but he wants to speed up a restructuring plan that has been in the works for over a year.

The company has plans to grow revenue and hit a sustained 8% pretax profit margin. But the statement gave no time frame to reach that goal.

Shares of Ford rose 1.8% to $6.78 in premarket trading Thursday.

The statement says Ford will expand its commercial vehicle business with new software services. It also plans to offer more electric vehicles around the globe including a fully electric Transit van and F-150 pickups. There also are plans for an electric Mustang, as well as unspecified SUVs and Lincoln vehicles. Ford also plans to add more affordable vehicles to its lineup, although no details were given.

Farley is retooling the company’s management structure into three regional business units: The Americas and International Markets, Europe, and China. He also plans a new business out of the self-driving system created by Argo AI, a subsidiary in which Ford is the primary investor, but no specifics were given.

“We are going to compete like a challenger — allocate capital to higher growth and return opportunities to create value — and earn customers for life through...