ReportWire

Tag: Corporate management

  • Ford quality chief retires as CEO tries to boost reliability

    Ford quality chief retires as CEO tries to boost reliability

    DETROIT — Ford Motor Co.’s top quality executive is retiring as the company continues to struggle with high warranty claims and reliability issues.

    Stuart Rowley, chief transformation and quality officer, is leaving after 32 years with the company. He’ll be replaced by Jim Baumbick, who is now vice president of product development operations and internal combustion engine programs, the company said Wednesday.

    “Quality is our No. 1 priority as a company, and Jim Baumbick is the right leader to deliver world-class quality and reliability at Ford,” CEO Jim Farley said in a statement.

    Farley has complained about quality, warranty claims, recalls and problems with launching new vehicles since his appointment as chief executive two years ago.

    At the company’s annual shareholders meeting in May, Farley said the problems are affecting Ford’s financial performance, but also causing pain for customers.

    “We’ve made more progress on our launch quality and initial quality, you could see it in the surveys and our ramp-up of production,” Farley said at the meeting. “However, we are not satisfied at all with our quality performance, including our recalls and customer satisfaction efforts, which we need to quickly accelerate. ”

    He said fixing the problems will require new talent, which the company has, as well as a culture shift and better processes for engineering, manufacturing and supply chain management. “It’s very frustrating for our customers, and so we’re doing everything we can to accommodate them with the right policies to support them when they do have a problem, and rest assured this management team is completely committed to fixing our gap to competition and return the company to being benchmark,” he said.

    Ford’s statement said Josh Halliburton, who was hired in January from survey and data analysis company J.D. Power to be executive director of quality, will report to Baumbick.

    The move, Ford said, will integrate quality improvement work in design, engineering, manufacturing and the supply chain.

    Rowley will retire Dec. 1 after more than three decades with the automaker, where he held multiple positions including chief operating officer for North America, president of Ford Europe.

    The change is among several management moves the company announced Wednesday.

    Joy Falotico, president of the Lincoln luxury brand, will retire after 33 years with the company. She’ll be replaced by Dianne Craig, now president of the International Markets Group.

    Steven Armstrong, vice president for the India and South America transformation, also will retire, after 35 years with Ford.

    The moves come at a time of profound change that Farley is leading at Ford, including separating the company into electric vehicle and internal combustion units.

    In August the company let go of 3,000 white collar workers to cut costs and help make the long transition from combustion vehicles to those powered by batteries.

    Governments across the globe are pushing to eliminate combustion automobiles to mitigate the impact of climate change. Companies like Ford are orchestrating the wind-down of their combustion businesses over multiple years, even though they are still generating the cash to fund electric vehicle development.

    Source link

  • Musk floats paid Twitter verification, fires board

    Musk floats paid Twitter verification, fires board

    Billionaire Elon Musk is already floating major changes for Twitter — and faces major hurdles as he begins his first week as owner of the social-media platform.

    Twitter’s new owner fired the company’s board of directors and made himself the board’s sole member, according to a company filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    He’s also testing the waters on asking users to pay for verification. A venture capitalist working with Musk tweeted a poll asking how much users would be willing to pay for the blue check mark that Twitter has historically used to verify higher-profile accounts so other users know it’s really them.

    Musk, whose account is verified, replied, “Interesting.”

    Critics have derided the mark, often granted to celebrities, politicians, business leaders and journalists, as an elite status symbol.

    But Twitter also uses the blue check mark to verify activists and people who suddenly find themselves in the news, as well as little-known journalists at small publications around the globe, as an extra tool to curb misinformation coming from accounts that are impersonating people.

    “The whole verification process is being revamped right now,” Musk tweeted Sunday in response to a user who asked for help getting verified.

    On Friday, meanwhile, billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said he and his Kingdom Holding Company rolled over a combined $1.89 billion in existing Twitter shares, making them the company’s largest shareholder after Musk. The news raised concerns among some lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut.

    Murphy tweeted that he is requesting the Committee on Foreign Investment — which reviews acquisitions of U.S. businesses by foreign buyers — to investigate the national security implications of the kingdom’s investment in Twitter

    “We should be concerned that the Saudis, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting U.S. politics, are now the second-largest owner of a major social media platform,” Murphy tweeted. “There is a clear national security issue at stake and CFIUS should do a review.”

    Having taken ownership of the social media service, Musk has invited a group of tech-world friends and investors to help guide the San Francisco-based company’s transformation, which is likely to include a shakeup of its staff. Musk last week fired CEO Parag Agrawal and other top executives. There’s been uncertainty about if and when he could begin larger-scale layoffs.

    Those who have revealed they are helping Musk include Sriram Krishnan, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which pledged back in the spring to chip in to Musk’s plan to buy the company and take it private.

    Krishnan, who is also a former Twitter product executive, said in a tweet that it is “a hugely important company and can have great impact on the world and Elon is the person to make it happen.”

    Jason Calacanis, the venture capitalist who tweeted the poll about whether users would pay for verification, said over the weekend he is “hanging out at Twitter a bit and simply trying to be as helpful as possible during the transition.”

    Calacanis said the team already “has a very comprehensive plan to reduce the number of (and visibility of) bots, spammers, & bad actors on the platform.” And in the Twitter poll, he asked if users would pay between $5 and $15 monthly to “be verified & get a blue check mark” on Twitter. Twitter is currently free for most users because it depends on advertising for its revenue.

    Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion in April but it wasn’t until Thursday evening that he finally closed the deal, after his attempts to back out of it led to a protracted legal fight with the company. Musk’s lawyers are now asking the Delaware Chancery Court to throw out the case, according to a court filing made public Monday. The two sides were supposed to go to trial in November if they didn’t close the deal by the end of last week.

    Musk has made a number of pronouncements since early this year about how to fix Twitter, and it remains unclear which proposals he will prioritize.

    He has promised to cut back some of Twitter’s content restrictions to promote free speech, but said Friday that no major decisions on content or reinstating of banned accounts will be made until a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints is put in place. He later qualified that remark, tweeting “anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail.”

    The head of a cryptocurrency exchange that invested $500 million in Musk’s Twitter takeover said he had a number of reasons for supporting the deal, including the possibility Musk would transition Twitter into a company supporting cryptocurrency and the concept known as Web3, which many cryptocurrency enthusiasts envision as the next generation of the internet.

    “We want to make sure that crypto has a seat at the table when it comes to free speech,” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao told CNBC on Monday. “And there are more tactical things, like we want to help bring Twitter into Web3 when they’re ready.”

    He said cryptocurrency could be useful for solving some of Musk’s immediate challenges, such as the plan to charge a premium membership fee for more users.

    “That can be done very easily, globally, by using cryptocurrency as a means of payment,” he said.

    Source link

  • Musk floats paid Twitter verification, fires board

    Musk floats paid Twitter verification, fires board

    Billionaire Elon Musk is already floating major changes for Twitter — and faces major hurdles as he begins his first week as owner of the social-media platform.

    Twitter’s new owner fired the company’s board of directors and made himself the board’s sole member, according to a company filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    He’s also testing the waters on asking users to pay for verification. A venture capitalist working with Musk tweeted a poll asking how much users would be willing to pay for the blue check mark that Twitter has historically used to verify higher-profile accounts so other users know it’s really them.

    Musk, whose account is verified, replied, “Interesting.”

    Critics have derided the mark, often granted to celebrities, politicians, business leaders and journalists, as an elite status symbol.

    But Twitter also uses the blue check mark to verify activists and people who suddenly find themselves in the news, as well as little-known journalists at small publications around the globe, as an extra tool to curb misinformation coming from accounts that are impersonating people.

    “The whole verification process is being revamped right now,” Musk tweeted Sunday in response to a user who asked for help getting verified.

    On Friday, meanwhile, billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said he and his Kingdom Holding Company rolled over a combined $1.89 billion in existing Twitter shares, making them the company’s largest shareholder after Musk. The news raised concerns among some lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut.

    Murphy tweeted that he is requesting the Committee on Foreign Investment — which reviews acquisitions of U.S. businesses by foreign buyers — to investigate the national security implications of the kingdom’s investment in Twitter

    “We should be concerned that the Saudis, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting U.S. politics, are now the second-largest owner of a major social media platform,” Murphy tweeted. “There is a clear national security issue at stake and CFIUS should do a review.”

    Having taken ownership of the social media service, Musk has invited a group of tech-world friends and investors to help guide the San Francisco-based company’s transformation, which is likely to include a shakeup of its staff. Musk last week fired CEO Parag Agrawal and other top executives. There’s been uncertainty about if and when he could begin larger-scale layoffs.

    Those who have revealed they are helping Musk include Sriram Krishnan, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which pledged back in the spring to chip in to Musk’s plan to buy the company and take it private.

    Krishnan, who is also a former Twitter product executive, said in a tweet that it is “a hugely important company and can have great impact on the world and Elon is the person to make it happen.”

    Jason Calacanis, the venture capitalist who tweeted the poll about whether users would pay for verification, said over the weekend he is “hanging out at Twitter a bit and simply trying to be as helpful as possible during the transition.”

    Calacanis said the team already “has a very comprehensive plan to reduce the number of (and visibility of) bots, spammers, & bad actors on the platform.” And in the Twitter poll, he asked if users would pay between $5 and $15 monthly to “be verified & get a blue check mark” on Twitter. Twitter is currently free for most users because it depends on advertising for its revenue.

    Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion in April but it wasn’t until Thursday evening that he finally closed the deal, after his attempts to back out of it led to a protracted legal fight with the company. Musk’s lawyers are now asking the Delaware Chancery Court to throw out the case, according to a court filing made public Monday. The two sides were supposed to go to trial in November if they didn’t close the deal by the end of last week.

    Musk has made a number of pronouncements since early this year about how to fix Twitter, and it remains unclear which proposals he will prioritize.

    He has promised to cut back some of Twitter’s content restrictions to promote free speech, but said Friday that no major decisions on content or reinstating of banned accounts will be made until a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints is put in place. He later qualified that remark, tweeting “anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail.”

    The head of a cryptocurrency exchange that invested $500 million in Musk’s Twitter takeover said he had a number of reasons for supporting the deal, including the possibility Musk would transition Twitter into a company supporting cryptocurrency and the concept known as Web3, which many cryptocurrency enthusiasts envision as the next generation of the internet.

    “We want to make sure that crypto has a seat at the table when it comes to free speech,” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao told CNBC on Monday. “And there are more tactical things, like we want to help bring Twitter into Web3 when they’re ready.”

    He said cryptocurrency could be useful for solving some of Musk’s immediate challenges, such as the plan to charge a premium membership fee for more users.

    “That can be done very easily, globally, by using cryptocurrency as a means of payment,” he said.

    Source link

  • Trump Organization faces criminal tax fraud trial over perks

    Trump Organization faces criminal tax fraud trial over perks

    NEW YORK — For years, as Donald Trump was soaring from reality TV star to the White House, his real estate empire was bankrolling big perks for some of his most trusted senior executives, including apartments and luxury cars.

    Now Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, is on trial this week for criminal tax fraud — on the hook for what prosecutors say was a 15-year scheme by top officials to hide the plums and avoid paying taxes.

    Opening statements and the first witnesses are expected Monday in New York. Last week, 12 jurors and six alternates were picked for the case, the only criminal trial to arise from the Manhattan district attorney’s three-year investigation of the former president.

    Among the key prosecution witnesses: Trump’s longtime finance chief Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty and has agreed to testify against the company in exchange for a five-month jail sentence.

    If convicted, the Trump Organization could be fined more than $1 million and could face difficulty in securing new loans and deals. Some partners and government entities could seek to cut ties with the company. It could also hamper its ability to do business with the U.S. Secret Service, which sometimes pays the company for lodging and services while protecting Trump as a former president.

    Neither Trump nor any of his children who have worked as Trump Organization executives are charged or accused of wrongdoing. Trump is not expected to testify or even attend the trial.

    Prosecutors have said they do not need to prove Trump knew about the scheme to get a conviction and that the case is “not about Donald Trump.” But a defense lawyer, William J. Brennan, said even if he’s not physically there, Trump is “ever present, like the mist in the room.”

    That’s because Trump is synonymous with the Trump Organization, the entity through which he manages his many ventures, including his investments in golf courses, luxury towers and other real estate, his many marketing deals and his TV pursuits.

    Trump signed some of the checks at the center of the case. His name is on memos and other company documents. Witnesses could testify about conversations they had with Trump. They are even expected to enter Trump’s personal general ledgers as evidence.

    Prosecutors say The Trump Organization — through its subsidiaries Trump Corp. and Trump Payroll Corp. — is liable in part because former Weisselberg was a “high managerial agent” entrusted to act on behalf of the company and its various entities.

    The Trump Organization has said it did nothing wrong. The company’s lawyers argue that Weisselberg and other executives acted on their own and that, if anything, their actions harmed the company financially.

    Weisselberg, who has pleaded guilty to taking $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation, pinned blame on himself and other top Trump Organization executives, including senior vice president and controller Jeffrey McConney.

    But he disagreed with the notion that the company was harmed, saying the perks actually saved the company money because it avoiding having to give raises.

    Prosecutors have said they expect to call 15 witnesses, including Weisselberg and McConney, who was granted limited immunity to testify last year before a grand jury.

    Judge Juan Manuel Merchan expects the trial to take at least four weeks, though a defense lawyer estimated last week that the prosecution case alone could go on for two months. Court will meet for a full day on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursday and for a half-day on Friday. The trial is off on Wednesday so the judge can attend to other matters.

    Source link

  • Drizly agrees to tighten data security after alleged breach

    Drizly agrees to tighten data security after alleged breach

    WASHINGTON — Alcohol delivery app Drizly has agreed to tighten its data security and limit data collection to resolve federal regulators’ allegations that its security failures exposed the personal information of some 2.5 million customers.

    The Federal Trade Commission announced the action Monday against Drizly, a Boston-based subsidiary of Uber that delivers beer, wine and spirits in states where it’s legal, and partners with retailers in hundreds of cities around the US. The proposed consent agreement with the FTC also names Drizly CEO James Cory Rellas. The regulators allege that the company and Rellas were alerted to security problems two years before the 2020 breach yet failed to act to protect consumers’ data.

    Drizly agreed to put in a comprehensive data security program and establish security safeguards, and to limit future data collection or storage to that which is necessary for specific purposes. It will also destroy unnecessary data.

    “Our proposed order against Drizly not only restricts what the company can retain and collect going forward but also ensures the CEO faces consequences for the company’s carelessness,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection, said in a statement. “CEOs who take shortcuts on security should take note.”

    Drizly collects and stores on Amazon Web Services cloud-computing service a wide range of personal data from customers such as email and postal addresses, phone numbers, geolocation information and data purchased from third parties, according to the FTC.

    “We take consumer privacy and security very seriously at Drizly, and are happy to put this 2020 event behind us,” the company said in a statement.

    The proposed consent agreement will be opened to public comment for 30 days, after which the FTC will decide whether to make it final.

    Source link

  • Co-CEO of SKorean chat app steps down over service outage

    Co-CEO of SKorean chat app steps down over service outage

    SEOUL, South Korea — A top executive of South Korea’s largest mobile chat app, Kakao, stepped down on Wednesday over a widespread service outage that triggered an outpouring of complaints in a country that is heavily reliant on such technology.

    Namkoong Whon, who became Kakao’s co-CEO in March, said he will resign to focus on his role as the leader of the company’s emergency task force for solving the technical problems exposed by the outage, which was caused by a fire at a data center near Seoul on Saturday.

    The fire initially paralyzed most of Kakao’s services, causing huge disruption in a country where millions of people rely on the apps to chat with friends, wire money, and hail taxis. Critics say the severity of the outage and Kakao’s slow recovery efforts highlighted the company’s poor backup systems and its overreliance on outsourced servers.

    Kakao said most of its services were operating normally as of Wednesday morning. SK C&C, which hosts Kakao’s servers at its data center in Pangyo, reportedly resumed providing full levels of electricity to those servers earlier on Wednesday after restoring the damaged systems.

    “Because of the data center fire, I feel more miserable than ever and take to heart my grave responsibility. I will step down to demonstrate Kakao’s willingness for renovation and change,” Namkoong said in a news conference.

    Kakao’s sole CEO is now Hong Eun-taek. He said the company is investing 460 billion won ($322 million) to build its own data center in the city of Ansan, which it plans to complete within a year. The company also plans to establish another data center in nearby Siheung by 2024.

    “We have learned our lesson from the fire, and our own data centers will be built as facilities that will be safe from fires and natural disasters like earthquakes, tidal waves and typhoons,” Hong said during the news conference.

    According to market analysis firm WiseApp, Kakao’s free chat app had around 45 million active users as of April, a huge presence in a country with a population of around 51 million. The company has used the popularity of the app to branch out to banking, online shopping and Uber-like taxi services in recent years. Its app also has been part of the country’s COVID-19 response, including reservations for vaccines and use of QR codes for infection tracing.

    Kakao’s chat users had dropped to around 39 million during the outage in the weekend as people began using other alternatives such as Facebook’s Messenger, Telegram and Naver’s Line, WiseApp said.

    South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Kakao’s service outage also exposed the problems of its dominant market presence and added that the country’s antitrust watchdog was examining competition issues.

    “If a market becomes distorted by a monopoly or a severe oligopoly, especially to the extent where the (services) begin to function like a national infrastructure, the government should of course respond with necessary measures to protect the interests of people,” Yoon said Monday.

    Source link

  • Century-old nonprofit Goodwill on taking thrifting online

    Century-old nonprofit Goodwill on taking thrifting online

    NEW YORK — Goodwill is expanding its online presence, promising high tech features from digitized receipts to personalized alerts.

    The 120-year-old Maryland-based nonprofit organization this month launched GoodwillFinds, a shopping venture that is making roughly 100,000 donated items available for purchase online and expanding Goodwill’s internet presence that until now had been limited to auction sites like ShopGoodwill.com or individual stores selling donations online via eBay and Amazon. GoodwillFinds aims to offer 1 million items online in the next year or two.

    Spearheading the venture is Matthew Kaness, newly appointed CEO of the online shopping arm who has 20 years of retail experience. GoodwillFinds is a separate entity from Goodwill Industries International Inc., but will support the larger organization by helping fund its community-based programs across the U.S., provide professional training, job placement and youth mentorship. It should also increase donations, while also helping to expand its base of customers.

    The Associated Press spoke to Kaness about the online experience and why the venture’s timing is right. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

    Q: What makes this venture different from the existing Goodwill online experience?

    A: Access to shopping and thrifting on Goodwill will be unparalleled for the first time online compared to going to your one store location or trying to go through a sea of items on Amazon and eBay. The second thing is that because of technology, we’re going to be able to personalize the discovery, the recommendations, the notification, the email alerts, everything that you’re accustomed to when shopping at other brands.

    Q: How will a greater presence online amplify Goodwill’s mission?

    A: We are going to be elevating the global story around the impact that Goodwill has. Last year, Goodwill provided social services to 2 million individuals across the country. And then last year, all the Goodwills diverted 3 billion pounds of goods away from landfill based on the donations received and sold.

    Q: Why is the timing right?

    A: There’s a reason why secondhand is growing eight times faster than the overall industry. Consumers, in particular, younger consumers, Gen Z, generally love thrifting from a fashion perspective and from a retail store shopping perspective. They really care about the impact that their dollars have on the environment. That, coupled with the incredible value that all families of households for 100 years have found, especially at this time of economic hardship.

    Q: Will this increased shift to online hurt the Goodwill physical stores?

    A: When you are a store-based company and you’re only selling a little bit online through marketplaces, you don’t know who your customer is. You have to reacquire that customer over and over again. There are so many online competitors that are keeping your customers from getting to your store because they’re making it so convenient for shopping secondhand online. This is is going to massively expand the audience and the customer base for each one of our Goodwill members.

    Source link

  • Ex-PG&E execs to pay $117M to settle lawsuit over wildfires

    Ex-PG&E execs to pay $117M to settle lawsuit over wildfires

    OAKLAND, Calif. — Former executives and directors of Pacific Gas & Electric have agreed to pay $117 million to settle a lawsuit over devastating 2017 and 2018 California wildfires sparked by the utility’s equipment, it was announced Thursday.

    The settlement was announced by the PG&E Fire Victim Trust, which was established to handle claims filed by more than 80,000 victims of deadly wildfires ignited by PG&E’s rickety electrical grid. The trust’s lawsuit, filed last year, alleged that former officers and board members neglected their duty to ensure the utility’s equipment wouldn’t kill people.

    The complaint was an offshoot of a $13.5 billion settlement that PG&E reached with the wildfire victims while the utility was mired in bankruptcy from January 2019 through June 2020.

    As part of that deal, PG&E granted the victims the right to go after the utility’s hierarchy leading up to and during a series of wind-driven wildfires that killed more than 100 people and destroyed more than 25,000 homes and businesses, including the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed much of the town of Paradise in Butte County.

    PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter for causing the fire and was fined $4 million, the maximum penalty allowed.

    All told, PG&E has been blamed for more than 30 wildfires since 2017 that wiped out more than 23,000 homes and businesses and killed more than 100 people.

    Those sued by the fire trust included two of PG&E’s former chief executives, Anthony Earley and Geisha Williams, who were paid millions of dollars during their terms, and former board members. They were covered by liability insurance secured by the utility, the trust has said.

    PG&E is the nation’s largest utility, with an estimated 16 million customers in central and Northern California.

    In a statement, PG&E said the settlement is “another step forward in PG&E’s ongoing effort to resolve issues outstanding from before its bankruptcy and to move forward focused on our commitments to deliver safe, clean and reliable energy to our customers, and to continue the important work of reducing risk across our energy system.”

    The settlement money won’t go to fire victims. Instead, under a bankruptcy court order, the money will be used to satisfy “the vast majority” of claims made by federal agencies, such as the U.S. Forest Service, that helped fight the blazes and assist the victims, said a statement from Frank M. Pitre, lead attorney for the trust.

    That means the money won’t have to come out of funds earmarked for the trust, which has paid out $4.9 billion to victims.

    The trust has said it faces a huge shortfall because half of the promised settlement consisted of PG&E stock that has consistently traded at less than what was hoped for when the deal was struck toward the end of 2019.

    The stock closed Thursday at $12.38 a share on the New York Stock Exchange, down more than 30 cents.

    Would-be investors might be spooked by PG&E’s continuing wildfire woes. In June, the company pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges it faces after its equipment sparked the Zogg Fire, which killed four people and destroyed hundreds of homes in Northern California two years ago.

    Also earlier this year, PG&E agreed to pay more than $55 million to avoid criminal prosecution for two other major wildfires sparked by its aging Northern California power lines. But the company didn’t acknowledge wrongdoing in those cases.

    And last week, federal investigators seized a utility transmission pole and attached equipment in a criminal probe into what started the Mosquito Fire in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

    The fire that broke out on Sept. 6 destroyed nearly 80 homes and other buildings. The fire, which has burned nearly 120 square miles (311 square kilometers), was 85% contained Thursday.

    Source link