[nthfinity]

We in Detroit are worried about the new CEO's who aren't car guys coming into our domain.... Thankfully GM still has one at the Helm... and of the three, they are doing the best.
I think Ford will eventually dump, or ask Mullallay to resign... (former Boeing fame)... I think Cerberus is pushing for a greener chrysler... and proof of this is by putting this new former CEO of General Electric... Times are looking bleak here in Detroit, and for all performance car lovers

Chrysler's New 'Tough-as-Nails' CEO By installing the controversial Bob Nardelli, Cerberus will shake up Chrysler—but that is just what the carmaker needs by David Kiley If Cerberus Capital Management, the new majority owner of Chrysler, wanted to make a bold statement Monday on its first day of running the automaker, the private equity firm succeeded when it named the well-known and controversial Robert Nardelli as its new chief executive. Nardelli, a former top General Electric (GE) manager who lost out to Jeffrey Immelt in the contest to succeed the legendary Jack Welch back in 2000, tends to elicit strong opinions and reactions wherever he goes. At Home Depot (HD), where Nardelli went after GE, he alienated the retailer's founders, Wall Street, shareholders, and virtually all of the management he inherited. He would go on to become a symbol of excessive CEO pay—as well as CEO arrogance because he wanted nothing to do with shareholder meetings. At the now privately held Chrysler, Nardelli's brand of management science and military leadership style may be just what Chrysler, long criticized for an undisciplined operating culture, needs to return to a profitable track. On the other hand, his lack of experience in the car business and his manage-through-fear track record could become so disruptive to Chrysler that Cerberus could end up getting its investment in the automaker back by selling off the Jeep brand instead of managing the whole company back to profitability. "Not a Car Guy" One of Nardelli's former colleagues says he is a fan of the new Chrysler CEO despite not recommending him for the CEO spot at General Electric. "Bob will tackle this with a vengeance," says GE former Chairman and CEO Jack Welch in an exclusive interview with BusinessWeek. "He will work seven days a week. He will have people on his team who are that committed." (To read more of Welch's comments about his former protégé, see BusinessWeek.com, 8/6/07, "Jack Welch: 'Cerberus Hit a Home Run'"). A longtime Chrysler watcher, professor Gerald Meyers of the University of Michigan, has a different take on Nardelli's chances for success in the auto industry. "Cerberus has the right idea, but the wrong guy," says Meyers. The onetime chairman of American Motors, Meyers says that Nardelli is "not a car guy…he could take 18 months to get his wheels out of the sand in terms of learning what he needs to know…and Chrysler doesn't have a lot of time." Meyers predicts that one of the aspects of the car business Nardelli will find most frustrating is that, unlike Home Depot store managers, dealers do not work for Chrysler. "They can be an ornery bunch, especially when things aren't going well, and the state laws are written to protect them against the car companies trying to bully them," says Meyers. Union Negotiations The new CEO is also walking into Chrysler just as it is negotiating new contracts with the United Auto Workers and the Canadian Auto Workers. These talks for new contracts are said by analysts to be critical to the future of Chrysler, Ford Motor (F), and General Motors (GM). CAW President Buzz Hargrove told Reuters (RTRSY) Monday that he was "surprised and concerned" by Cerberus' decision to hire Nardelli. "We don't know the guy." Just last week, Cerberus Chairman John Snow, the former Treasury Secretary under President George W. Bush, said there would be no management shakeup coming at Chrysler, although with outgoing CEO Thomas LaSorda being demoted to president and vice-chairman, that is clearly not the case. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger did not offer comment. Nardelli said Monday that he spoke with Gettelfinger, and that the union chief did query him about his "executive pay" at Home Depot. He told the new CEO: "I don't care about washing machines and snow blowers. I care about cars." Strong Support Cerberus founder Stephen Feinberg has not granted an interview but an executive who has spoken with Feinberg says the financier "worships" General Electric's management, and has been an admirer of Nardelli's. Feinberg, says the executive, believes that Nardelli's true "genius" will come out when he can manage out of the glare of "quarterly earnings reports, shareholder meetings, and daily share prices." The same executive says he expects that Nardelli and Feinberg will recruit more former GE executives "who think like they do" to Chrysler. Another Nardelli fan is Kenneth Langone, the man who brought him in to head Home Depot in 2000. Langone also has taken a lot of heat for his support of Nardelli. "If right now I was a Chrysler investor, I'd be very happy," Langone said at the Academy of Management's annual conference in Philadelphia, where he took part in a panel discussion about private equity. Langone credited Nardelli with bailing Home Depot out of its failed South American excursion, stabilizing the business, and raising profits, even if the stock price was lackluster. "He's probably the best operating executive I've ever known," Langone said. Nardelli's work ethic, detail-oriented philosophy, and his knack for deciphering costs and benefits are traits that will serve him well at the struggling automaker, Langone continued. "If anyone can save Chysler, Nardelli can," Langone said. "Not a Time to Play Nice" So now Nardelli replaces the panoramic view of downtown Atlanta at his Home Depot office with one of the suburban strip malls of Detroit's northern suburbs. But the wounds inflicted in his battles with shareholders and employees at the home-improvement retailer still haven't healed for some. For the last year, as Nardelli's fate remained a mystery, there was much speculation around the Peach State about what his next job would be. The news that he would run privately held Chrysler for a hedge fund such as Cerberus came as little surprise to some of his sharpest critics. "His only future was with the asset boys, the private equity firms," says A. Leigh Baier, an Atlanta attorney and Home Depot shareholder who challenged Nardelli's allegedly poor treatment of employees during his tenure. "I don't think any public company would have touched him. I'm glad there are no shareholders who are going to get hurt if these guys are wrong." Nardelli has been the poster boy in the ongoing debate over whether CEOs are paid too much. Nardelli ran Home Depot for almost six years until he parted ways with the retailer's board last January. In addition to being one of the best-paid CEOs at the same time the company's share price was stagnating, Nardelli received $210 million as he was headed out the door. At Cerberus and Chrysler, Nardelli's compensation agreement is being kept confidential and out of the headlines. But if Chrysler can turn itself around then Nardelli will have earned his payday, whatever it might be. And auto insiders such as Mike Jackson, CEO of AutoNation (AN), Chrysler's biggest dealer network, says he could be the right choice. "Chrysler has to reinvent the way it has been doing business for the last 100 years, from a push-production model to one that is a consumer-pull business," says Jackson. "And you are going to need a tough-as-nails executive who will move quickly and decisively, and Nardelli is that kind of guy," says Jackson. "This is not a time to play nice." Kiley is a senior correspondent in BusinessWeek's Detroit bureau.