Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Wednesday, May 28.
Stellantis, as expected, named longtime insider Antonio Filosa as its new CEO. The move is effective June 23 but has been telegraphed since the December exit of former CEO Carlos Tavares. Filosa, 51, is an acolyte of the late former CEO Sergio Marchionne and was the Stellantis board's safest pick.
The boards of Nissan Motor Co. and Volvo Cars also took similar paths this spring choosing comfortable candidates to run their companies. In March, Nissan named insider Ivan Espinosa, 46, to the top job while Volvo brought back former CEO Hakan Samuelsson, 74, for a two-year stint.
All three automakers face potentially existential threats such as the impact of U.S. tariffs and disappointing growth in EV sales. So going with a respected internal candidate is understandable.
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But there is also the school of thought that an outside candidate could accelerate the drastic operational and cultural changes needed for troubled companies. The shining example of this was Ford Motor Co. hiring Alan Mulally from Boeing in 2006 to become CEO of a company desperately needing a leadership reset.
The Stellantis board initially leaned toward an external candidate, The Financial Times reported today. But tariff turmoil "reinforced the need to find a leader who knew the company well and had broad regional experience," the report said.
"Antonio Filosa also brings a deep understanding of the U.S. market, something which the group's dealer body persistently accused Carlos Tavares of ignoring," Bernstein analysts wrote in a report. "We understand ... Filosa is already spending a large amount of time meeting with dealers to rebuild that trust."
Stellantis dealers quickly embraced the decision.
In other news, Espinosa and Nissan appear to be lining up about $7 billion in financing needed to fund the company's turnaround, according to this report.
There was also some sad news in the General Motors world. Marina von Neumann Whitman, an economist and professor who rose at GM in the 1980s to become one of the auto industry's most prominent female senior executives, died May 20. She was 90.
That's it for today. Have a great rest of your day. If you want to view this story in your browser, click here.
— Philip Nussel, online editor
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