Toyota's top North American executive is defecting to Chrysler, a move that stunned the auto industry and gives a highly regarded leader and consummate salesman the chance to turn things around at the struggling US automaker.
Chrysler LLC said on Thursday that Jim Press would become its vice chairman and president, in charge of the automaker's sales and marketing operations.
Press will resign on Sept. 14 from Toyota Motor Corp, where he has served as the first non-Japanese president and chief operating officer for Toyota in North America since last year. Before that, he was head of Toyota's North American sales during the company's rapid expansion.
Press, 60, is joining at a difficult time for Chrysler, which lost US$618 million last year and has had trouble gaining US market share despite a handful of hit products like the 300C sedan.
The company is in the midst of a restructuring and expects to shed 13,000 hourly and salaried jobs in the US and Canada by 2009. Last month, DaimlerChrysler AG finalized the sale of a controlling stake in Chrysler to the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, ending a disastrous nine-year alliance.
Press joins chairman and CEO Robert Nardelli and Tom LaSorda on Chrysler LLC's top management team.
LaSorda, who will share the titles of vice chairman and president with Press, will run the company's manufacturing and purchasing operations, while Press will handle sales, marketing and product strategy, company spokesman Mike Aberlich said.
"Tom LaSorda and I are thrilled that one of the most successful executives in the history of the auto industry has joined our leadership team at the New Chrysler," Nardelli said in a statement.
Press joined Toyota in 1970 after a brief stint at Ford Motor Co. He has held dozens of jobs at Toyota in advertising, marketing, service and product planning. In June, he became the first non-Japanese member of Toyota's board of directors.
"Toyota has been the centerpiece of my life. This was the most difficult decision I have made," Press said in a statement.
Toyota said Shigeru Hayakawa, a Japanese veteran at the company and Toyota managing officer, would be the new president of Toyota North America.
Hiring Press is Chrysler's third major executive announcement since Cerberus took control. Cerberus announced on Aug. 6 that Nardelli, the former CEO of Home Depot Inc, would become Chrysler's chairman and chief executive. Later last month, Chrysler hired Deborah Wahl Meyer, 44, a top marketing executive from Toyota's Lexus luxury brand and a colleague of Press.
Kevin Tynan, senior automotive analyst for Argus Research Corp, said Press' hiring shows Cerberus plans a serious restructuring.
"It's the kind of management team that will get things done," Tynan said. "If you were looking to acquire the company and polish it up to sell it, you wouldn't go to this extent to hire talent."
Tynan said Press' departure could hurt Toyota, since he put an American face on the company as it grabbed sales from domestic automakers.
Toyota doubled its share of the US market between 1990 and last year, from 7.5 percent to 15 percent, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank.
"He removed the `us versus them' stigma," Tynan said. "It could very well be that the impact to Toyota is greater than the impact to Chrysler."
Besides spearheading Toyota's US growth, Press was credited with energizing Toyota's dealers, something he said he wants to do at Chrysler. Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe expressed his gratitude to Press on Thursday.
"Jim has played a significant role in strengthening Toyota's presence in the US," Watanabe said.
In related news, Phil Murtaugh, former chief of General Motors' China operations, has resigned as vice president of GM's joint venture partner SAIC Motor Corp to take up a post at Chrysler, SAIC said yesterday.
Murtaugh, who joined SAIC in June last year, said he had "accepted an offer from Chrysler Corp that I think will be a tremendous opportunity for me. At this stage of my career, it is an offer I just cannot turn down."
The move was the second coup in two days for struggling Chrysler.
Murtaugh did not say what post he would take up at Chrysler, which recently announced a deal with China's biggest independent car company, Chery Automobile Co, to jointly produce and export cars to Western Europe and the US within two-and-a-half years.
He had spent 32 years with GM, where he played a key role in the launch of Shanghai GM, the company's biggest Chinese venture.
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