More than seven months into its restructuring plan, Ford Motor Co. has a new CEO. Bill Ford has resigned as the company’s chief executive and is replaced by Alan Mulally, a top executive from Boeing. However, Ford will remain as chairman. Under Bill’s watch, the company has so far failed to turn around the fortunes of the second largest domestic automaker. He is the great-grandson of company founder Hey Ford. In efforts to cut production costs, Ford closed down five plants and cut 35,000 jobs. In the Way Forward Plan, 14 facilities will be closed down and 30,000 jobs cut up by 2012.

Meanwhile, Alan Mulally was responsible for the recovery of Boeing’s commercial airplanes unit. He was a top contender for the CEO post over at Boeing but the company chose Jim McNerney, CEO of 3M. Bill Ford described Mulally as “ideally suited” for the job. “We need somebody with extensive turnaround experience, who was a leader and a real team builder”, said Bill during a news conference. Ford has a lot of work to do especially now that Toyota has eclipsed it to become the second most profitable automaker in the US today. We’ll see if Mulally can turn things around for Ford. He doesn’t have any experience in the automotive industry but he is praised for putting Boeing’s commercial planes unit back in shape. Will he be able to do the same for Ford?