Word: mazda
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When Mark Fields became president of Mazda in December 1999, he seemed like the kind of American who would try to bulldoze through Japan's porcelain corporate culture--and slink home in frustration. A native New Yorker with a Harvard M.B.A., he appeared slick, headstrong and inexperienced. At 38 he was Mazda's youngest president ever--younger, in fact, than the average employee. He wore sharp suits (and still does). He had a habit of speaking in marketing lingo (which he no longer does). And like most foreigners in Japan, he committed the occasional faux...
...Fields, who moved to Japan with his wife and two sons, proved adept at turning around an entrenched Japanese bureaucracy. Under his direction, Mazda was transformed from a floundering money loser to an automaker with net income of $66 million in its past fiscal year. Analysts hailed Fields as the next Carlos Ghosn--the executive who led Nissan's dramatic turnaround. Fields' bosses at Ford, which owns a controlling stake in Mazda, were so impressed that they handed him a bigger job: turbocharging Ford's troubled Premier Automotive Group (PAG), made up of Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo...
...task? He certainly conveys a zoom-zoom work ethic. A graduate of Rutgers University with an economics degree, he usually hits the office by 6 a.m. and closes his days with 10 p.m. weight lifting and a two-mile run. He likes to drive fast too. At Mazda he skipped the chauffeur service in favor of a red RX-7 sports car. At PAG, though, he says he will forgo the Aston Martin: "We need to look for every efficiency, and driving an Aston wouldn't set a good example...
Fields comes with a reputation as a cost cutter and fix-it guy. Before taking over Mazda, he spent two years in Argentina restoring a troubled Ford operation to profitability. At Mazda, where he started as sales and marketing senior adviser, he found a remarkably inefficient bureaucracy. Shortly after arriving, he requested a report on Japan's domestic-car market. Three days later, a tome the size of the New York City phone book, and about as illuminating, appeared on his desk. "Its conclusions were severely lacking," Fields says. "Our investment bankers knew more about our business than some...
...Mazda lost $1.2 billion in 2000. Last year it earned $65 million. Much of the credit for the turnaround fell to Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Fields, 41, the Harvard M.B.A. who revamped Mazda's lineup with models like his red RX-7 sport coupe. Last month Ford, which controls Mazda, asked Fields to work his magic on its lagging Premier Automotive Group, which makes Volvos, Jaguars, Aston Martins and Land Rovers...