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Ford loses chief brand officer, CEO of Smart Mobility unit

Ford Motor Co. is losing the head of its smart mobility subsidiary and its chief brand officer less than two years after each joined the company.

The automaker said Wednesday that Musa Tariq, the chief brand officer it hired from Apple Inc. in January 2017, has elected to leave the company,  effective this week. A Ford spokesman also said that Raj Rao, CEO of Ford Smart Mobility, will be leaving May 1.

Both departures come a month after the unexpected ousting of Raj Nair, the head of Ford's North America business unit, for "inappropriate behavior." Earlier this year, Jason Luo, head of Ford of China, also unexpectedly left the company for personal reasons.

And Laura Merling, tapped in October 2016 to steer Ford’s self-driving car efforts as vice president of autonomous vehicle solutions at Ford Smart Mobility, quietly left the company in January. She’s now chief digital officer at United Technologies, according to her Linkedin page.

Tariq was hired from Silicon Valley to help burnish the Ford image as it works to redefine itself with new mobility technology. He had previously worked for brands including Apple, Nike and Burberry.

"Musa is a proven leader of brand transformation, having led similar work at some of the world's most admired brands before coming to Ford, and he is a leader known for creativity and social media expertise," Ford CEO Jim Hackett said in a statement. "Over the last year, he has been helping to drive the same transformation at Ford. We are grateful for his service and will carry on the work he has started."

The automaker said Tariq's work will continue under Ford Chief Marketing Officer Joy Falotico, who was promoted to that role last month as part of an executive shuffle following Nair's departure.

Rao's departure was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal and Detroit Free Press. He joined the company in Oct. 2016 from Silicon Valley as vice president of digital business model innovation at 3M.

He has been in charge of Ford's plans to develop new mobility services. Hackett hired Rao in his prior role as Ford Smart Mobility's chairman before being named CEO last May.

A Ford spokeswoman said Rao’s position was eliminated in January when Ford announced it would rearrange its smart mobility team into four key areas to speed decision-making.

The company was aware of Rao’s decision to leave in May when it reorganized the unit earlier this year, she said.

Ford Smart Mobility now falls into four categories: Ford X, a business incubator that will oversee Autonomic and the company's transportation mobility cloud; Mobility Business Group, which will oversee more established initiatives such as FordPass, Chariot and other business opportunities; Mobility Platforms and Products, which will lead design and development for the technology underpinning Ford's mobility businesses; and Mobility Marketing and Growth, which will be the global marketing and sales team.

Those groups are overseen by four different executives who all report to Marcy Klevorn, Ford’s president of mobility.