Alan Roger Mulally was born on August 4, 1945. He is an American engineer who works on planes and space vehicles, and he has held important leadership roles in manufacturing. In 2006, he was not chosen to be the CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and later became the president and chief executive officer of Ford Motor Company from 2006 to 2014.
Mulally started his career with Boeing as an engineer in 1969. He played a key role in helping Boeing regain success against Airbus in the mid-2000s. At Ford, he helped the company recover during the Great Recession, a time when other American car companies went out of business and needed help from the government. His work at Ford is described in the book American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company by Bryce G. Hoffman, published in 2012. In 2014, he joined the Board of Directors of Google and left that position by 2024.
In 2015, Mulally was added to the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.
Early life
Mulally was born in Oakland, California. His parents were Lauraine Lizette (Clark) and Charles R. Mulally, who met at a USO dance. He grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, his mother's hometown, where he was a member of Plymouth Congregational Church. He said Rev. Dale Turner was a mentor and an inspiration. He often sat at the front of the church to watch how the minister affected the people there. At 17, Mulally felt inspired by President John F. Kennedy's goal to send a person to the moon.
He graduated from the University of Kansas, his mother's school, with a Bachelor of Science (1968) and Master of Science (1969) in aeronautical and astronautical engineering. He was part of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He earned a Master's degree in Management from MIT's Sloan School of Management in 1982 as a Sloan Fellow.
Career
Alan Mulally began his career at Boeing in 1969 as an engineer right after college. He worked in many engineering and management roles, contributing to the development of several Boeing aircraft, including the 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, and 777. He led the team that designed the cockpit for the 757 and 767. This design included the first all-digital flight deck in a commercial airplane, the second two-person crew for long-range flights after the Airbus A300, and a shared pilot training system for two different planes. He worked on the 777 program first as director of engineering and later became vice president and general manager starting in September 1992.
He was later named vice president of Engineering for Boeing’s commercial airplane group. He helped promote Phil Condit’s "Working Together" philosophy during and after the 777 project. In 1994, Mulally became senior vice president of Airplane Development, overseeing all airplane development, flight testing, certification, and government relations. In 1997, he became president of Boeing Information, Space & Defense Systems and senior vice president. He held this role until 1998, when he became president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and added chief executive officer duties in 2001.
After the forced resignations of Boeing’s CEOs Phil Condit in 2003 and Harry Stonecipher in 2005, Mulally was considered a top candidate to replace them. When he was not chosen, questions arose about whether he would stay with the company. In 2006, Aviation Week & Space Technology named Mulally "Person of the Year" for his work at Boeing.
When asked how he would manage Ford’s complex auto business during a financial crisis, Mulally said, "An automobile has about 10,000 moving parts, right? An airplane has two million, and it has to stay up in the air."
In 2006, former Ford CEO Donald Petersen recommended Mulally to Ford. Mulally became president and CEO of Ford Motor Company on September 5, 2006, succeeding Bill Ford, who became executive chairman. Mulally initially drove a Lexus LS430, calling it the "finest car in the world," but later switched to Ford models after criticism. William Clay Ford Jr. had been searching for a successor, with other leaders like Dieter Zetsche and Carlos Ghosn declining the offer.
One of Mulally’s first decisions at Ford was to reintroduce the Taurus nameplate, which had been a top-selling model before declining in the late 1990s. He took over Ford’s "The Way Forward" plan to reduce losses and improve market share. His cost-cutting efforts led to Ford’s first profitable quarter in two years, and dividends to shareholders were paused.
In 2006, Mulally led Ford to borrow $23.6 billion by using all of its assets as collateral. He said the money would fund a major company overhaul and provide financial protection during a recession. At the time, the loan was seen as a sign of desperation, but it later helped stabilize Ford compared to competitors General Motors and Chrysler, which went bankrupt during the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Ford was the only one of the "Detroit Three" automakers not to request government loans. Mulally supported government loans for GM and Chrysler during congressional hearings, explaining the economic risks of their collapse.
In 2007, Mulally oversaw the sale of Jaguar Cars and Land Rover to Tata Motors, an Indian company. Ford received $2.3 billion from the sale, less than what it had paid earlier. Analysts said Ford might have gotten even less if it had tried to sell later in 2008, when Jaguar Land Rover sales dropped sharply. Mulally also sold Aston Martin and Volvo Cars and reduced Ford’s ownership in Mazda.
In 2008, Ford proposed cutting Mulally’s salary to $1 per year if government loans were used. He and other industry leaders faced criticism for traveling to Washington, D.C., in corporate jets. Later, Mulally traveled to Washington in a Ford-built hybrid electric vehicle and sold most of the company’s corporate jets.
In 2008, Mulally earned $13,565,378 in total compensation, including a base salary of $2,000,000, stock awards of $1,849,241, and option awards of $8,669,747. This was 37.4% less than his 2007 earnings.
Due to his work at Ford, Mulally was included in the 2009 Time 100 list. The entry, written by Steve Ballmer, said, "[Mulally] understands the fundamentals of business success as well as any business leader I know."
In 2011, Mulally was named Person of the Year by the Financial Times ArcelorMittal Boldness in Business Awards and received the 2011 CEO of the Year award from Chief Executive magazine. He also won an Edison Achievement Award for his career commitment to innovation.
In 2012, Mulally was given an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the University of Kansas for his contributions to engineering and transportation.
On November 1, 2012, Ford announced Mulally would stay with the company at least through 2014. In 2013, reports suggested he might leave earlier, and the board supported this. He retired on July 1, 2014, and was succeeded by Mark Fields.
On July 9, 2014, Mulally joined Google’s (now Alphabet) Board of Directors. In 2016, he became a senior fellow at Seattle University’s Albers School of Business.
Mulally was considered for the U.S. Secretary of State position in the first Trump administration, but the role went to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson.
Management style
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Mulally negotiated four new agreements with the United Auto Workers, which reduced labor costs from $76 per hour to $55 per hour.
He lived no more than three miles away from his office at Ford's global headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. He held a meeting with Ford's executives, called a "Business Plan Review" (BPR), every Thursday at 7:00 a.m. in the "Thunderbird Room" at Ford's headquarters. During a "town meeting" with 100 information technology employees in February 2007, Mulally stated, "We have been going out of business for 40 years," and shared this message with other groups of employees.
Self-management
McKinsey & Company asked Mulally how he kept his mental and physical strength. He answered: "Many people focus on managing time, but managing energy is also important. First, you must ask, 'What gives me energy?' Energy can come from many things, such as family, exercise, or spiritual health. In our home, we had a weekly family meeting called the family BPR, which stood for 'Business Plan Review.' During this meeting, we discussed the tasks we needed to complete and the help required to finish them each week. This was another step in a process, and a very important one."