There was a time when it appeared that Joe Hinrichs was destined to spend his entire automotive career with General Motors, the company that wooed him when he was an engineering student at the University of Dayton.

But fate and Ford intervened.

Five years ago, after a two-year stint in the financial industry, Hinrichs was all set to resume his career with GM when Ford scooped him from its biggest rival. Hinrichs' career has blossomed at Ford, where he was promoted to president and CEO of Ford's Canadian division in January.

Despite his baptism in the automobile industry with GM, the 38-year-old Hinrichs is clearly a Ford man through and through, and a disciple of the legendary Ford family - including Ford Motor Company CEO Bill Ford Jr.

Ken Kerr, Business Edge
Ford of Canada president Joe Hinrichs enjoyed the company's recent showcasing of the famed Mustang.

After two months on the job in Canada, Hinrichs is already proving to be quite a passionate marketer of Ford products as the company sets its wheels in motion to recapture lost market share. And only when pressed does Hinrichs confess that his first car was a Chevrolet.

1. What career did you aspire to as a youngster?

"When I was in high school and early in college, I always wanted to run a business, be a CEO. My plan was to get an engineering degree and a law degree with the intention of eventually running a business. I liked engineering school because of the problem-solving and critical-thinking skills that went with that. I took the law-school admissions test, but then I decided to work a few years and then go to business school. And that's how it worked out."

2. Your first job was with General Motors. Why did you choose that company?

"GM gave me a scholarship my last two years of college because of my academic performance (at the University of Dayton in Ohio) and I worked for them in the summers while going to college. GM was going through difficult times while I was there, but it was a great experience to see the downside of not running the business competitively and also to see how important the leadership role was on the turnaround and changes in a company. GM also sent me to Harvard for my MBA, so it was a very rewarding experience. I didn't have intentions of leaving GM in 1998, but I had a great opportunity to go to work for a very wealthy and successful family out of Chicago, and be partner in a private-equity group that managed their business portfolio."

3. How did you initially hook up with Ford?

"After being away from the auto industry for two years, I quickly realized that I missed it. I was all lined up to go back to GM, and then I got this phone call from the vice-president of human resources at Ford, whom I didn't know. He said: 'Hey, we heard you're interested in coming back to the auto industry and we'd like you to stop by and see what we have to offer.' At this point, I was pretty locked in to going back to General Motors, but I said: 'Hey, you know what? It's the first time in my career where I haven't been tied to a company, so I might as well listen to what they have to say.' After some conversations, I decided that Ford had the right blend of strategy, leadership and potential for me to do some things. It was a very difficult decision, but one that I would make again today."

4. What did it mean to you, being promoted to president and CEO of Ford of Canada?

"It was important to me for several reasons. First off, from a family perspective, it allows my family (wife Maria and three children) to experience Canada after having spent all our lives in the United States. From a career standpoint, most of my experience inside the automotive industry has been more related to manufacturing. This opportunity really gets me to spend more time on the sales and marketing side of the business, on government relations and all of our public-sector activity."

5. What's your most daunting challenge with Ford of Canada?

"It's to continue to build on momentum of launching our great products and to do so in a way that gets people into our showrooms to consider our new products, which we think are very competitive and outstanding products.

"By doing that, it will enable us to stop several years of market-share erosion to allow us to grow going forward. We think we have the products and the people to do that."

6. Specifically, what are the things you need to do to regain market share?

"It's important for us to get people into our showrooms to see what great products we have. You do that through communications, advertising, marketing and local programs to attract customers. Also, we at Ford of Canada have to continue to bring products and packages that suit the needs and requirements of the Canadian consumer."

7. So what does the Canadian consumer want, muscle cars or environmentally friendly vehicles?

"It's such a large market, so it's kind of hard to narrow it down to anything. Obviously, the Canadian consumer is very community conscious and environmentally conscious, so products that play to that desire to want to improve the environment are kind of important. We think we have the products to do that, with our Escape Hybrid (SUV), for example. Obviously, family-oriented vehicles like large sedans, SUVs and minivans are important to Canada. Trucks are also important, because we have a large space to cover and a lot of industry and natural resources here in Canada. Then you've got the small-car segment, which is very important."

8. You personally showcased the Mustang at the recent Canadian International AutoShow. How important is the Mustang and its automotive awards to your marketing of the company?

"We think the Mustang is important because it really showed people that we're back in the car segment. We had a hat trick with the Mustang recently (with three awards from the Automotive Journalists of Canada, including car of the year). That shows our design capability, our performance capability and, equally important for Ford, our affordability."

9. How do you see the market evolving for environmentally friendly vehicles that reduce emissions?

"We think it will continue to evolve. Right now, there's a lot of activity on the hybrid electric side of the business, with the internal combustion engine with some battery-operated capabilities. That will continue to grow. We're also seeing lots of testing and lots of activity around the internal combustion engine. I think you'll see a lot of testing, a lot of analysis and customer-acceptance evaluations going on in all those segments, but I'm not so sure you can yet define where it's going to go. Most of those alternative solutions require significant infrastructure changes to the climate that we're used to today. I also think you'll continue to see new diesel technology make its way into the marketplace, and that has some exciting aspects to it as well."

10. What are you driving these days?

"I'm driving a Ford Five Hundred (sedan), which is great for this time of year. It's all-wheel drive and can get you out of anything that the Canadian winter wants to give you. As a matter of fact, we had well over a foot of snow in my driveway this morning. I just hopped in the vehicle and drove right out with no problem. So that's exciting. I wanted to drive the Five Hundred because it's one of our new products, and I really want to show what kind of confidence we have in the vehicle."

11. The auto industry has been in negotiations with the Canadian government over emissions standards. What's the status of those negotiations?

"Well, we've had good conversations. The auto industry has a history of reaching voluntary agreements with the (Canadian) government. In 14 separate instances over the last several decades, we've reached voluntary agreements and, in every single one of those agreements, the auto industry has either met or exceeded those voluntary commitments. We think we have a proud history of being wonderful members of the community and we take our responsibilities seriously. Hopefully, we'll soon come to an accord that works for Canadian citizens, for our environment and for the economy."

12. In your view, what's the key to maximizing the potential of employees?

"There is a historical model of running businesses that kind of has this strict hierarchy with a chain of command that goes up in a pyramid. I think that it doesn't work like it used to with today's business world. It's based on an old military model. I believe leadership plays three important roles - allocation of time, communication and motivation. Our role in our organization is to make all of our employees successful and, ultimately, all of our dealerships and all of their employees successful, because they're the ones that touch the customer every day. In our business, it's very important that we as leaders at Canadian headquarters have the view and the strategies that really serve our employees, serve the dealerships and serve the customers. At the end of the day, to leaders, communication is so critically important. And communication involves more than speaking. As we tend to forget, communication involves listening."

13. Who's the business leader you most admire?

"This will sound awfully self-serving, but I'd say it's Bill Ford (great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford) right now. From a historical perspective, I'd put Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan (former president of GM) in there because they had a profound impact on the market and where it is today."

14. What has Bill Ford been like to work for?

"You know, Bill's a great individual. Forget about whether he's a member of Ford Motor Company or not. And Bill wears his values on his sleeve, which I think is an asset. Bill has given us the strong direction that we want, great products, a strong business and a better world. And we've been better focused on that. So when you see Ford out there leading, with the only no-compromise hybrid SUV, and you see us active in all of our technologies around the environment, that's all part of Ford. And when you come back to Bill Ford, you know, it's a family business and Ford feels like a family business even though it's a very large corporation."

15. You say it feels like a family business?

"Yes, it does. Bill Ford allows us to have that continuity with the family. He's there, and he's not going anywhere, and he's going to be there for the long term. Generation after generation after generation of Fords are going to be involved in this business, so he's not looking at what this quarter is going to be like. He's looking at what the business is going to be like long term. That's very rewarding in today's business environment."

16. What message from Bill Ford really resonates with you?

"Bill's been pushing us lately to really look at affordability as a key part of our business strength. Affordability has one aspect to it, which is the price-and-value proposition. But what he's asked us to look at even more is to look at affordability from a total perspective, which is the environment, the climate and the whole society. So it's very exciting to have a Ford (family) member running the company."

17. Do you think you could have worked for Henry Ford?

"Well, from what I've learned from the books I've read about him, he was pretty demanding, but he was also very supportive to the people who delivered and were good for the business. I think I would have enjoyed it. This portrait I have in my office of Henry Ford in the 1920s is a reminder of our heritage. Also, the great thing about Henry was that it's the Ford Motor Company and his love was for engines. And that was the key to vehicles in the early days.

"I'm from a powertrain and transmission background, so I think we have that in common. But, more importantly, I think that Henry was very creative in the solutions he provided and he really cared deeply about his employees and about the role that Ford played in society. I think those are things that are very much in tune with my priorities as well."

18. How do you plan to put your stamp on Ford of Canada?

"I think at the end of the day, if we can stabilize our business from a volume standpoint and then give us the foundation to grow going forward, that will be an important legacy. I think we can set this company up for its next 100 years. We're in our 101st year and we're looking for the next century to be better than the last century."

19. Do you lose sleep over what your former employer, GM, is doing?

"We all watch the competition very closely, and we're concerned when the competition goes to drastic measures and influences the market in a way that we think isn't right, long term, for the value that we provide in our vehicles. When GM's the dominant No. 1 player in Canada, you have to watch what they do and we watch them very closely. But we think that our products are competitive with anybody in the industry, and we like to say in Ford that we wouldn't trade our showroom with anyone else's. So, while we watch what the competition is doing and we worry a little about what they do from an incentive standpoint and those kinds of things, we like to say that our products speak for themselves."

20. Do you aspire to one day sit in the CEO's chair at the parent company?

"I think it's a little premature to have those aspirations.

What I aspire to right now is for Ford of Canada to be successful, and if that allows me greater opportunities for the future, that would be wonderful. But right now we're focused on making Ford of Canada as successful as possible, and we'll let the future play itself out."

IN PROFILE: Joe Hinrichs

* Title: President/CEO, Ford of Canada.

* Born/Raised/Age: Columbus, Ohio/Fostoria, Ohio/38.

* Education: University of Dayton (Ohio), bachelor's degree in electrical engineering (magna cum laude); Harvard Business School, MBA.

* Family: Wife Maria, three children.

* Career: Hinrichs was a General Motors Fellow while at Harvard, which led him to a 10-year stint with GM in the engineering and manufacturing departments. At 29, he became the youngest plant manager in GM's recent history and in 1994 Harvard Business School published a case study on his leadership during the turnaround of the plant. He then spent two years with a manufacturing investment company in Chicago, Ryan Enterprises Group, as a partner and senior vice-president. Hinrichs joined Ford Motor Company as a plant manager in 2000. He was director of manufacturing for vehicle operations prior to being appointed as president and CEO of Ford of Canada in January of this year.

* Drives to work in: The Ford Five Hundred sedan.

* Role Models: Automotive kingpins Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan.

* Passions: Playing basketball, reading books on business and leadership.

THE COMPANY: Ford of Canada

* Brass: Joe Hinrichs, president/CEO; Robert Girard, vice-president, sales; Gilles Contant, VP of customer service; David Greenberg, VP of marketing.

* Profile: Ford of Canada is a division of Ford Motor Company and employs approximately 14,000 workers in its offices and manufacturing plants. An additional 19,000 work for the 470 Ford and Ford-Lincoln dealerships in Canada. Ford of Canada affiliates include Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, Hertz and Ford Credit.

* Stats: Revenue for Ford's Canadian operations in 2004 was $18.1 billion. Since 1990 Ford has invested $10 billion in its Canadian operations.

* Achievements: The Automobile Journalists of Canada recently named the 2005 Ford Mustang the 'best new design' and 'car of the year.' The Ford F-150 has been Canada's best-selling pickup truck for the past 39 years and is also the best selling vehicle (cars and trucks) in Canada.

* Website: www.ford.ca

* Head office: The Canadian Road, Oakville, ON, L6J 5E4

* Phone: 905-845-2511