The legendary CEO of Fiat Chrysler unexpectedly replaced

The legendary boss of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and Ferrari, Sergio Marchionne, was unexpectedly replaced this weekend after his health suddenly deteriorated rapidly.

Marchionne, 66, was admitted to a Zurich hospital three weeks ago for what the FCA described as a shoulder operation. In recent days, his health has deteriorated considerably. "This situation was unthinkable a few hours ago and leaves us with a feeling of unfairness," said Saturday John Elkann, FCA President and grandson of Gianni Agnelli, who went to the office in the second half of the last century. Fiat Empire The company did not give medical details.

After an emergency meeting on Saturday, it was announced that Marchionne, as CEO of Fiat Chrysler, was succeeded by Mike Manley, 54, a Briton. Manley has been head of the FCA Jeep division since 2009 and is responsible for the Ram pickups, the company's main profit creators, particularly in the US since 2015. It's the first time Fiat's CEO has been a non-manager. Italian.

Marchionne is a phenomenon, visually recognizable because since his appointment as CEO of Fiat in 2004, he still walks in a blue or black sweater. He managed to get the sick Fiat out of the red numbers; In 2004, the Fiat group recorded a loss of 1.5 billion euros, for a turnover of 47 billion.

His master's degree was the merger with Chrysler in 2009. Marchionne had been looking for a long time to cooperate with another automaker. When Chrysler went bankrupt in 2009, it was able to get approval for a special deal after tough negotiations with US unions: twenty percent of Chrysler's shares in exchange for the manufacturer's knowledge and technology Italian automobile.

Canadian nationality

Marchionne rearranged the various parts of the Fiat Group and Chrysler. He has headed not only FCA, but also the CNH Group for Agricultural and Excavation Machinery, and Ferrari. Together, these three companies made a profit of 4.4 billion euros in 2017, with a turnover of 141 billion euros.

Ferrari and CNH now have separate CEOs. For Ferrari, it is Louis Camilleri, one of the best men of tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris. Camilleri, a Maltese, was already on the set of Ferrari. John Elkann becomes president of Ferrari.

Marchionne, who emigrated with his Italian parents to Canada at the age of fourteen and who also has Canadian nationality, brought to the head of the largest private corporation in Italy a wind of freshness in the Italian economic system. It has given space to young executives, confronted powerful unions with the reality of globalization and managed to maintain most Fiat factories in Italy.