Ford Motor, one of the pillars of the US auto industry, has groomed the electric vehicle subsector for its next chief financial officer.
Sherry House, 52, who will become Ford’s vice president of finance on June 3, will join the company from Lucid Motors, where she spent three years helping introduce the company’s first luxury electric vehicle. John Lawler, Ford’s current chief financial officer who was promoted to vice chairman, will accompany House in his transition to chief financial officer in 2025.
The move from a startup to one of Detroit’s Big Three was a surprise, but it demonstrates Ford’s determination to become a player in the electric vehicle market. Jim Farley, Ford’s CEO, publicly admitted in quarterly earnings presentations that the electric vehicle segment was the company’s “major drag”; it expects to end 2024 with a loss of more than $5 billion in its electric vehicle division.
Ford needs to “urgently build a profitable electric vehicle business and generate new and recurring revenue streams,” Farley said in introducing House.
The future CFO appears as an outsider, but not entirely. She was instrumental in launching Lucid as a public company, and she previously spent several years at Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving technology subsidiary. However, upon returning to Michigan, she claims to have returned to her family roots; her grandfather was a tool and die maker for Ford, and she previously worked for supplier Visteon and General Motors.
However, it will face numerous challenges in finding a path to electric vehicle profitability for Ford, including falling prices, Chinese competition, environmental initiatives, a lack of charging infrastructure in the U.S. and short-term sluggish demand for electric vehicles. And reception in the auto industry can be brutal. Tim Stone, who joined Ford as CFO from SNAP in 2019, lasted just 18 months before moving to the software company.