Jim Farley (Ford)

Farley’s father was a banker. He was born in Argentina and grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, and his parents nicknamed him “Jimmy Car-Car” for his love of anything with wheels. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and then worked at IBM for about two years.⁠[1][1][1]

His maternal grandfather, Emmet Tracy, was an orphan who joined Henry Ford’s suburban Detroit factory in 1914 as employee No. 389, one of the first workers to build the Model T, and later ran a Lincoln dealership in Grosse Pointe. Farley often spent summers with his grandfather; at 14 he drove a black 1966 Ford Mustang that he had rebuilt from California to Michigan to visit him, before he had a driver’s license.⁠[1][1][1]

In 1990 Farley joined Toyota’s then-fledgling Lexus division, where one of his first jobs was as a field representative handling dealers’ demands. Jim Press, Toyota’s former American chief, who gave him that job, recalled it as “a tough, tough, tough assignment,” but said one could see him develop an understanding of the importance of dealers.⁠[1][1]

He spent nearly two decades at Toyota’s North American operations, where he introduced the youth-oriented Scion brand and ran the Lexus luxury line; Ford’s proxy statement describes his Toyota tenure as various leadership positions over a 17-year career.⁠[1][1][2]

In November 2007 Farley was recruited from Toyota by then-CEO Alan Mulally and Executive Chairman William Clay Ford, Jr., and joined Ford as global head of marketing and sales.⁠[2][1][3]

He went on to lead the Lincoln brand, Ford South America, Ford of Europe and all of Ford’s global markets in successive roles; his positions included group vice president of global marketing and Canada, Mexico and South America, and executive vice president of global marketing, sales and service.⁠[3][2]

During the financial crisis, Ford’s U.S. sales in November 2008 fell 30 percent year over year, against an estimated 35 percent decline for the industry. Farley, then Ford group vice president for marketing and communications, said the economy continued to weaken and auto sales reflected that reality, and that Ford was focused on executing its plan and would launch an unprecedented number of new vehicles in 2009 and 2010.⁠[4][4]

From 2015 to 2017 Farley was Ford executive vice president and president of Ford Europe, Middle East and Africa.⁠[2]

On May 22, 2017, as Mark Fields retired and Jim Hackett became president and CEO, Ford elected Farley, then 54, executive vice president and president of Global Markets. He oversaw the business units for the Americas; Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Asia Pacific, as well as the Lincoln Motor Company and global marketing, sales and service, and he was also responsible for strategy and business model development for electrified and autonomous vehicles.⁠[5][5][6][6]

From April 2019 Farley led Ford’s New Businesses, Technology & Strategy team, studying how the company could capitalize on the forces reshaping the industry, such as software platforms, connectivity, artificial intelligence, automation and new forms of propulsion.⁠[3]

On February 7, 2020, Ford announced that Farley would become chief operating officer effective March 1, reporting to president and CEO Jim Hackett. He became responsible for all of Ford’s global markets and automotive operations, including product development, purchasing, manufacturing and labor affairs, marketing, sales and service, and quality and new model launch, while retaining leadership of Ford Smart Mobility, Ford’s autonomous vehicle unit and the partnership with Argo AI; Joe Hinrichs, president of the automotive business, retired at the same time. Ford tasked him with driving the automotive business to a sustainable global EBIT margin of at least 8 percent.⁠[7][8][8][8][7][8]

On August 4, 2020, Ford announced that Jim Hackett would retire and that Farley, then 58, would succeed him as president and CEO and join the board effective October 1, 2020; Hackett stayed on as an advisor until March 31, 2021. Executive Chairman William Clay Ford, Jr. said Farley matched an innate feel for cars and customers with great instincts for the future and new technologies; Farley said he loved Ford and that Hackett had laid the foundation for a really vibrant future.⁠[9][9][9][3][3][3][3]

The board’s compensation committee raised his annual base salary from $1.4 million to $1.7 million and granted him stock options valued at $4 million, exercisable only after Ford’s share price closed at $9.24 or higher for twenty consecutive trading days.⁠[9][9][9]

Before taking office, Farley asked factory workers, middle managers and dealers alike what one thing at Ford they would change, and engaged a “reverse mentor,” a customer-experience staffer six levels below him; he said the company needed to “invert,” with decisions, authority and autonomy coming from all employees. On the day he was named, he choked up while speaking about his late grandfather’s start at the Highland Park plant.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

At the “Delivering Ford+” capital markets day on May 26, 2021, Farley set out the Ford+ plan: replacing the traditional transactional build-and-sell model with ongoing customer relationships, expecting 40 percent of Ford’s global volume to be fully electric by 2030, raising planned electrification spending to more than $30 billion through 2025, and creating Ford Pro to serve commercial and government customers. He called it the company’s “biggest opportunity for growth and value creation since Henry Ford started to scale the Model T.”⁠[10][10][10][10]

On March 2, 2022, Ford announced it would split its auto business into two distinct units, Ford Blue for internal combustion vehicles and Ford Model e for electric vehicles and software, which together with Ford Pro were expected to have separate profit-and-loss statements by 2023; it targeted a 10 percent adjusted EBIT margin and annual production of more than 2 million EVs by 2026. Farley said the ambition of Ford+ was to become a truly great, world-changing company again, and that this required focus. That month he took on the additional role of president of Ford Model e.⁠[11][11][11][2]

At the Aspen Ideas Festival in late June 2025, Farley stressed the importance of the “essential economy” of moving, building and fixing things, argued that the United States underinvests in vocational training, and estimated shortages of about 600,000 factory workers and nearly half a million construction workers; he also said artificial intelligence would replace half of all white-collar workers in the United States. In an interview with author Walter Isaacson, he likewise said AI would leave many white-collar workers behind.⁠[12][12][12][13]

On December 15, 2025, Ford announced it would no longer produce some larger electric vehicles and would redirect capital to trucks, hybrids, affordable EVs and battery energy storage, expecting to record about $19.5 billion in special items. Farley called it “a customer-driven shift,” saying the operating reality had changed and the company was redeploying capital into higher-return growth opportunities.⁠[14][14][14]

McDonald’sMcDonald’sMcDonald’s is a publicly traded restaurant company headquartered in Chicago, known for hamburgers, fries, drive-thrus and its franchise network. Its origins lie in the restaurant opened by Richard and Maurice McDonald in 1940; Ray Kroc expanded franchising from 1955. It operates across more than 100 countries, with the great majority of restaurants run by independent operators.Open the full entry Corporation announced Farley’s election to its board effective February 4, 2026, bringing the board to 12 members. McDonald’s chairman and CEO Chris Kempczinski said Farley brought invaluable experience in balancing innovation with operational excellence, modernizing customer experience and working with independent operators.⁠[15][15][15]

On February 9, 2026, Farley, a Harley-Davidson director, notified the company that he would not stand for re-election at its upcoming annual meeting; Harley-Davidson said the decision was not due to any disagreement with the company.⁠[16][16][16]

In Ford’s full-year 2025 results, Farley said the company had delivered a strong year in a volatile environment, lowering material and warranty costs, improving quality and making difficult but critical strategic decisions, and he set a target of an 8 percent adjusted EBIT margin by 2029.⁠[17][17][17]

According to Ford’s 2026 proxy statement, Farley’s total compensation for 2025 was $27,519,557, compared with a median annual total compensation of $93,397 for Ford employees other than the CEO, a ratio of 295 to 1. As of February 1, 2026, he beneficially owned 6,426,789 shares of Ford common stock, about 0.16 percent.⁠[2][2][2][2]

On Tuesday, September 29, 2026, Ford Motor Company, JPMorganChaseJPMorgan Chase & Co.JPMorgan Chase & Co. is a financial holding company headquartered in New York that operates investment banking, consumer and small business financial services, commercial banking, financial transaction processing and asset management under its J.P. Morgan and Chase brands; its roots trace back to the Manhattan Company of 1799.Open the full entry, the State of Michigan, Michigan Central and Newlab announced in Detroit the public-private platform Michigan LIFT (Michigan Launchpad for Industrial Innovation & Transformation), which turns manufacturing and supply-chain challenges identified by industrial buyers into “Open Calls” for innovative suppliers and helps them obtain business, financing and state support to expand production in Michigan. Under the participants’ ten-year aspirations, Ford, as the anchor industrial buyer, aims to award up to $1 billion of business to suppliers on the platform, and JPMorganChase aims to provide up to $1 billion in debt financing.⁠[18][18][18][18][19]

Farley said at the launch that Ford is “America’s automaker,” that American manufacturing’s best days are ahead, and that Michigan LIFT is about solving real manufacturing challenges faster; he also referred to Ford’s ACCELERATE conference that week. JPMorganChase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said the platform builds on Detroit’s model of public-private collaboration.⁠[18][18][18]

Farley relieves stress through motor racing; he has driven his vintage Ford GT40 at Le Mans in France, and his garage also includes a Cobra and a Lola 298. His longtime friend Wayne Rainey, a three-time world champion motorcycle racer, described him as precise in his racing lines and aggressive.⁠[1][1][1]

Ford Motor Company: Official website: https://corporate.ford.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2]