The Marchionne era comes to an end suddenly

I Sergio Marchionne, the most successful Italian manager of the last decade, is in such poor health that he will never be able to return to his current positions. This was reported by John Elkann, head of the Agnelli family, president of the family holding Exor and Fiat-Chrysler, Sunday in a letter to all employees. Many details of the letter and an official statement on Saturday sound like the anticipation of an obituary for the former CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), the president and CEO of Ferrari and the president of CNH Industrial with truck Iveco and tractors among Case and New Holland Names

Marchionne had his last official date on June 26, when he handed a jeep to the Italian riflemen. He wanted to have a routine operation at the shoulder to get information from the group and then to a hospital in Switzerland. It has been reported that complications have arisen and finally it was necessary to bring Marchionne to the intensive care unit.

A successor is already certain

The 66-year-old director was born near the Adriatic coast in the Abruzzo region. Emigrated to Canada at the age of 14, he initially announced that he would give up his executive positions at Fiat-Chrysler and CNH at the 2019 Annual General Meetings. John Elkann had once again announced that Marchionne could stay with Ferrari as boss as he wanted. In Italy, it was speculated that Marchionne could possibly aim for a major shareholder role at Ferrari

The funds needed for this: since the acquisition of Fiat's head in 2004, he had earned wages and bonuses around 600 million euros. But Marchionne's poor health now destroys all plans for the future. The situation meant that Saturday the boards of directors of the three companies involved were meeting for crisis meetings and that one day Marchionne's estate was regulated.

The new CEO of Fiat-Chrysler is Michael Manley, 54 years old. old brands owned Chrysler Group Jeep and Ram. Two promising candidates, Chief Financial Officer Richard Palmer and European Chief Alfredo Altvilla, were ousted. The ultimately successful candidate Manley has had the advantage that he leads the only truly successful brand of the group. When she was named Jeep in 2009, the brand sold 337,000 cars, up from 1.4 million last year. Manley made his career mainly with Chrysler. Entered the company in 2000, when Chrysler still belonged to Daimler

No room for speculation

At Ferrari, John Elkann, the head of the Agnelli family aged 42, took the presidency and came before family members. maybe dreaming for a long time. General Manager is now the former boss of Philip Morris' cigarette and food company, Louis Camilleri. From Elkann's point of view, Malteser, born in Egypt, aged 63, was a member of Ferrari's board of directors and is particularly qualified for the pursuit of the sports car brand that was able to to devote Marchionne to one day a week only in recent years.

The British Suzanne Heywood, 49, takes over the presidency of CNH Industrial, a truck and tractor manufacturer. She comes from a long career at McKinsey and is well known to Elkann, who she also supports with strategic advice. She is married to Sir Jeremy Heywood, the main UK official.

With the new appointments, John Elkann secures the durability of companies, leaving no room for stock market speculation. For him, however, Sergio Marchionne was not just a hired manager, but as he writes himself, especially a business strategy teacher. As a result, many strategic questions are posed directly by Elkann.