• News
  • Guides
  • Reviews
  • Media
  • About
  • News
  • Guides
  • Reviews
  • Media
  • About
Sign up Now (For Free)

Sign up for our newsletter and receive the latest automotive news in your inbox!

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Thanks for subscribing!
News
Read Now
  • All News
  • Automakers
  • Automobiles
  • Auto Shows
  • Business
  • EVs & Environment
  • Guides
  • Lawsuits/Legal
  • Regulatory
  • Ride-Sharing
  • Safety & Recalls
  • Technology
Recent
  • The End of an Era for Rolls-Royce
  • South Carolina Provides $1.29 Billion Incentive for new Scout Factory
  • Hyundai and Kia Criticized about Stolen Car Problems by Attorneys General
  • Dodge Rolls Out Final “Last Call” Model: a 1,025-Hp Challenger SRT Demon 170
  • Acura’s New Integra Type S Launching with 320 Hp
  • First Look: Ferrari Roma Spider
  • What do Americans Think of EV Ownership Today?
  • Challenger Fain Edges Closer to UAW Presidency
  • Week Ahead: All About the Cars — Except for the UAW Part
  • The Rearview Mirror: Birth of a Sports Car Legend
Editor’s Choice
    Reviews
    Read Now
    • All Reviews
      • Feeder
    • Classic Cars
    • Concept Cars
    • Convertibles
    • Coupes
    • Crossovers/CUVs
    • Diesel
    • Hot hatches
    • Hybrids
    • Luxury Vehicles
    • Minivans
    • Muscle Cars
    • Pickups
    • Sedans
    • Sports Cars
    • Super Cars
    • SUVs
    Recent Reviews
    • First Drive: 2023 Genesis Electrified GV70
    • First Drive: 2023 Nissan Ariya e-4orce AWD
    • A Week With: 2023 Jeep Compass Limited
    • A Week With: 2023 Cadillac Escalade V-Series
    • A Week With: 2023 Volvo XC40 AWD Ultimate
    • First Drive: 2024 Subaru Crosstrek
    • First Drive: 2023 Lexus RZ 450e
    • A Week With: 2023 Toyota GR Supra 3.0 Manual
    • First Impression: 2024 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
    • A Week With: 2023 Chevrolet Blazer RS AWD
    Editor’s Choice
      Guides
      Car Warranty
      • Endurance Warranty Reviews
      • BMW Extended Warranty
      • Extended Warranty For Cars Over 100k Miles
      • Extended Car Warranty Cost
      • Subaru Extended Warranty
      • CarShield Reviews
      • CarShield Cost
      • Aftermarket Car Warranty
      • CARCHEX Warranty Reviews
      • Reputable Extended Car Warranty Companies
      • Used Car Warranty Companies
      • Best Car Warranty
      • Is CarShield A Scam?
      • Mercedes Extended Warranty
      • CarShield Plans
      Insurance
      • How To Identify A Car Insurance Company
      • Geico Mechanical Breakdown Insurance
      • How Far Back Does A Car Insurance Company Look
      • Mechanical Breakdown Insurance For Used Cars
      • State Farm Mechanical Breakdown Insurance
      • Mechanical Breakdown Insurance From Progressive
      • Dollar A Day Insurance
      • Auto Insurance For SSI Recipients
      • Car Insurance Rates After A Suspended License
      • Auto Insurance For Salvage Vehicles
      • Average Cost of Dodge Ram 1500 Car Insurance
      • Car Insurance Florida
      • Full Coverage Auto Insurance
      • GrubHub Insurance
      • Amazon Delivery Auto Insurance
      Shipping
      • Car Shipping Companies
      • uShip Reviews
      • Auto Shipping From California To Hawaii
      • Montway Auto Transport Reviews
      • Cheap Car Shipping
      • Easy Auto Ship Reviews
      • Auto Shipping Miami
      • Auto Shipping To Alaska
      • Car Shipping Cost
      • Auto Shipping Hawaii
      • Auto Shipping Puerto Rico
      • Sherpa Auto Transport Reviews
      • Auto Shipping Atlanta
      • Auto Shipping Boston
      • Auto Shipping. Chicago
      About
      • About Us
      • Contact Us
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy Policy
      • Affiliate Disclosure
      • Sitemap
      TheDetroitBureau.com

      More than just “another” place to find news, reviews, spy shots, commentary, features, and guides about the auto industry. TheDetroitBureau doesn’t stop with the press releases or confuse a few lines of opinion with insightful, in-depth reporting.

      Contact Us

      Like what you see? Have some ideas for making The Detroit Bureau.com even better? Let us know, we’d love to hear your voice.

        Media
        Listen Now
        • Headlight News: All Episodes
        More from TheDetroitBureau
        • Guides
        • Latest News
        • Auto Reviews
        • Podcasts
        Headlight News

        TheDetroitBureau.com’s Headlight News offers a look at the past week’s top automotive news stories, as well as what’s coming up in the week ahead. Check out the week’s top story and our latest review…along with a dive into the past with this week in automotive history.

        home > news > Automakers > Marchionne Out, Manley In as Fiat Chrysler CEO

        Marchionne Out, Manley In as Fiat Chrysler CEO

        Questions about health issues blamed for Marchionne’s early departure.

        Paul A. Eisenstein
        Paul A. Eisenstein , Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
        July 21, 2018
        Larger than life: Marchionne outlined a broad 5-year-plan during a day-long June session in Milan.

        Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced on Saturday that Jeep and Ram brand boss Michael Manley will replace CEO Sergio Marchionne, who due to complications from recent surgery is gravely ill and will not return to work.

        Though the 66-year-old Marchionne was known to have undergone surgery this past week for what was reported to be a shoulder problem. According to FCA’s statement, the Italian-born and Canadian-educated Marchionne experienced “unexpected complications,” while his conditions had “worsened significantly in recent hours.”

        Subscribe Now!

        Word of Marchionne’s departure quickly echoed through the automotive grapevine. Few industry executives have had a higher profile presence in recent decades, and even fewer could be said to have done more to shape a company in his own image as did Marchionne, who rescued the then-bankrupt Chrysler by securing a U.S. government bailout and then merging it with Italy’s Fiat S.p.A.

        “For so many, Sergio has been an enlightened leader and a matchless point of reference,” said John Elkann, FCA’s chairman and heir to the Agnelli family that founded Fiat and still holds a controlling stake in the trans-Atlantic automaker. “He taught us that the only question that’s worth asking oneself at the end of every day is whether we have been able to change something for the better, whether we have been able to make a difference.”

        Marchionne shown during an appearance with John Elkann, FCA chairman and Agnelli heir.

        (Just four brands will dominate the future for FCA. Click Here to learn more.)

        A brilliant strategist, Marchionne was born in a Abruzzo, Italy and migrated with his family to Toronto when he was 13. He earned degrees at the University of Toronto and later at the University of Windsor, a tunnel or bridge ride away from Detroit. While not an automotive “lifer,” he was brought on by Fiat in May 2003 and then was named its CEO the following year.

        The Italian automaker faced serious problems at the time but Marchionne won kudos for quickly improving its fortunes, quickly proving himself “an extraordinarily dynamic individual, with quite a lot of energy,” said David Cole, the director-emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

        But the real test would come in 2009, as the Great Recession struck the auto industry, driving two of Detroit’s Big Three into bankruptcy. While then-president Obama was ready to bail out General Motors he considered letting Chrysler go under – until Marchionne came along as the U.S. automaker’s white knight. What started as a Euro-American alliance eventually resulted in a formal merger and, proving his energy level never flagged, Marchionne routinely commuted between corporate offices in Italy, the Detroit suburbs and London, where FCA is legally headquartered.

        There is little doubt the company is in far better shape than when he stepped in to save Chrysler. In June, at a corporate strategy conference called to outline latest FCA’s 5-year plan, Marchionne declared meeting one of his most critical goals: eliminating the company’s industrial debt. Only two months earlier, Marchionne was able to announce a record first-quarter profit of $1.24 billion.

        Jeep boss - and new FCA CEO Mike Manley.

        Much of that credit goes to just two brands: Jeep and Ram, beneficiaries of the massive shift from traditional passenger cars to light trucks. Since the two sides of FCA came together, Jeep has shifted from a largely American-based brand into a global powerhouse, sales roughly tripling to around 2 million SUVs a year. Ram, while remaining more U.S.-centric, nonetheless has challenged bigger brands like Ford and Chevrolet and now generates the bulk of Fiat Chrysler’s global revenue.

        New CEO Manley built his own reputation on his work at Jeep, which he’s run since 2009 and, later, Jeep. The 54-year-old British native – who originally joined the old DaimlerChrysler in 2000, surviving its break-up and the subsequent bankruptcy – was a key architect of the new five-year plan outlined in Milan nearly two months ago.

        The plan was not quite as well-received by Wall Street as FCA executives had hoped, said analyst Joe Phillippi, of AutoTrends Consulting. And, even before Marchionne’s surgery, that triggered concerns he might have lost some support from the Agnelli family. “They may not have been happy that the street said ‘ho-hum.’”

        FCA Chairman Elkann’s lengthy tribute statement appears aimed at dismissing any speculation that Marchionne was forced out, however.

        While there is no doubt the now-former CEO made a number of critical steps while at the FCA helm, his work was far from complete. Though Marchionne hasn’t said much about the topic of late, he spent much of his years as chief executive trying to hunt down an alliance or merger partner that could increase FCA’s economies of scale and pump in both cash and technological help.

        (What’s Fiat Chrysler Automobiles without a Fiat or a Chrysler? Click Here to see what their (diminished) roles will be.)

        A big challenge for Manley now will be building momentum for two Italian brands, including Alfa.

        One of the big challenges facing Manley will be to position FCA as a player, rather than a laggard, in the critical areas of autonomous driving and electrification. His former boss did take a few steps, launching a plug-in hybrid version of the Chrysler Pacifica minivan and doing a deal to sell more than 60,000 of those hybrid vans to self-driving tech leader Waymo. Meanwhile, two of FCA’s European brands, Alfa Romeo and Maserati now plan to electrify large chunks of their product lines.

        Along with Jeep and Ram, Alfa and Maserati were identified in the Milan meeting as central to FCA’s global ambitions. But they have a lot to do to live up to expectations. “On the negative side, (Marchionne) burned a lot of cash trying to revive Alfa Romeo and it’s still a work in progress,” said Phillippi.

        While Maserati, the more luxurious of the two brands, has been gaining traction, especially since it launched its first SUV, Alfa has struggled, sales currently lagging well behind what was outlined in Marchionne’s previous five-year plan.

        “The original five-year plan wasn’t wrong,” Alfa and Maserati brand chief Tim Kuniskis said during an interview with NBC last month. “We said we’d sell 400,000 (Alfas a year) and we will. It’s just taking longer to get there,” in part, he said, because Alfa has shifted product plans to emphasize SUVs, rather than sedans, reflecting global market trends.

        The new plan surprised some observers with the strategy of all but dismissing FCA’s two marquee brands. But marchionne insisted that while the Fiat and Chrysler badges will shrink in importance they will remain part of the corporate portfolio, as will Dodge, which will put even more emphasis on building American-style muscle cars.

        (Click Here to check out the 10,000 hp version of the Dodge Charger Hellcat.)

        Whether Manley will make any moves away from the strategies outlined by his former boss will likely take some time to play out. He was widely seen as Marchionne’s heir-apparent, but he also was expected to retain his post helming Jeep and Ram for nearly another year.  While he had a strong input into the five-year plan, Manley will now have to take ownership of it.

        How to Care for Your Car

        Cheap Car Warranty

        Editor's Choice

        Best Extended Car Warranty

        Editor's Choice
        Recently Published
        2023 Rolls-Royce Black Badge Wraith Black Arrow nose REL

        The End of an Era for Rolls-Royce

        Yesterday
        Scout in neon on grille

        South Carolina Provides $1.29 Billion Incentive for new Scout Factory

        Yesterday
        2018 Hyundai Sonata front

        Hyundai and Kia Criticized about Stolen Car Problems by Attorneys General

        Yesterday

        Leave a Reply Cancel reply

        Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

        Share this article:
        © The Detroit Bureau 2023
        • Guides
        • Privacy Policy
        • Terms of Use
        • Affiliate Disclosure
        • Contact Us
        • Sitemap
        Follow Us: