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Walking the Talk

Posted by Jason Karaian | CFO.com | Europe

January 24, 2007 10:07 AM ET

Ford's North American unit posted an eye-watering $10 billion loss in the first nine months of 2006, a total that's likely to look even worse when the company reports full-year numbers on Thursday. Doing his part to put the ailing carmaker on track, Ford North America chief Mark Fields recently announced that he'll stop using the corporate jet for personal travel. Fields used the plane to fly back and forth to his family home in Florida on weekends, a perk that cost the company $214,479 in 2005, according to SEC filings.

Now, he'll have to slum it with Fritz Henderson, the CFO of General Motors, who also lives in Florida (is Detroit that bad?). According to the Financial Times, Henderson catches the last Northwest Airlines flight from Detroit to Miami every Friday night, usually arriving well after midnight.

I doubt that Fritz flies coach, but it does say something — however small — about his commitment to the company's turnaround efforts.

Comments (3)

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As a chartered accountant and CFO of a corporate aviation service business, I am very often asked to "JUSTIFY" the use of a corporate jet for our clients.

Using all my skills as an accountant and economist , it should be a piece of cake to deliver the requested "proof-of-value".

Nonsense, the true value of using a corporate jet comes from its direct effect on the motivation and thus performance of the persons fortunate enough to have this advantage.

The key to "justification" is treating the jet as a valuable corporate resource. RATIONALIZATION is possible without a total cold turkey approach.

I have taken plenty of "red-eye-last-flight-out" trips myself. They may build character but not that great for building a healthy family life.

Before taking the drastic "no-corp-fly" zone approach consider speaking with a professional corporate aviation management company to create a win-win situation.

Oliver Bleuer, ca
ACASS Canada Ltd

Posted by Oliver Bleuer | January 24, 2007 11:00am

The issue is not what you're paying or where someone is living, the issue is what the results delivered are.

You hire the best talent you can find no matter where they live. If he turns the company around, I doubt the shareholders will care about the $225,000 spent flying home on weekends. If he doesn't get the job done the cost of the flights to Forida pale in comparison to the loss the shareholders will realize.

Posted by Dave Guenthner | January 24, 2007 03:20pm

I couldn't agree more with the earlier Posts; although I'm still in middle management, I'm the first in my family to leave the "trades" and perform management responsibilities. None of my friends and family ... [so how would the shift workers at GM and other manufacturers?] ... understand the mental stress it takes to try to turn around the results of such a large company. If the $225k is the issue, folks aren't looking in the right places. As a shareholder, I do not want the chief executive team flying commercial. I applaud the guys who are making the extra effort to fly commercial as a means of taking the argument off the table ... but how long do you think they'll bear that cross before a firm who has fewer union or newspaper "investigators" stalking their executives lures them away? These nice guys taking the red-eye?? They won't be there for long-- because they don't have to.

Posted by Mark Pennington | January 29, 2007 08:33am


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