It’s not everyday one gets to interview a CEO of a billion dollar company, especially when one started off their blogging ‘career’ as a food blogger, and yet that was exactly the opportunity I got last week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
Dianne Craig is the CEO of Ford Canada, and Vernon Chang (VC), a fellow Toronto-based blogger, and I (DR) were invited to meet and have a light, informal chat with her. “Nervous” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Here I was, with the head of the company, who, by the way, paid for my entire trip, with a swarm of PR people paying close attention to our every word.
DR – What was the first vehicle you owned?
Oh yes, it was a Ford Escort that my parents got for me when I was in college. It was used, no air conditioning, stick shift and it was damaged. My dad actually started his career as a technician/body shop guy so I remember him in the winter taking something that wasn’t very nice and turning it into this amazing Escort Pony. That was my first car and I loved it!
DR – And how long did you keep the Escort?
I came to work for Ford and my first assignment outside of Dearborn was in Memphis, Tennessee. I was what we called a Zone Manager, calling on dealers and when you were out in the field you got a company car. I had that Escort for about 5 years but I was so excited when I got my first company car and it happened to be a Merkur XR4Ti. Not a lot of people may remember Merkur. It was a brand we had that came from Europe and it was gorgeous. I took my wonderful Ford Escort to the wholesaler and I got $500 for it!
VC – What makes you want to continue and grow with Ford?
When I graduated from university I needed a job and Ford was hiring. I didn’t have any aspirations to work in the car business but it just happened and I’m so thankful because I love working for Ford. I love the industry, it’s constantly changing and never dull. I’ve had this great career where every job I’ve had in this company I learned more from, and I’ve had these amazing leaders to work for, and 29 years later I feel like I’ve never worked a day in my professional life, which is pretty cool.
DR – Who has been your greatest mentor at Ford?
I’ve had so many mentors from my early days up until now. Alan Mulally was an incredible mentor to everybody at Ford. Mark Fields our current CEO, who I worked for when he was President of the Americas, he’s just a tremendous leader and he’s picked up right where Alan left off. Certainly my boss now, Joe Hinrichs has been incredible. But there has been so many, I can say I’ve never had a bad boss.
VC – Today Ryan Seacrest gave a motivating speech to the university students in the audience and he told them to not be afraid of being rejected, keep trying and always challenge yourself. As a female CEO, what were some of the challenges you’ve faced and what’s a positive message you have for people who look up to you?
I don’t know if I’m just unique but I’ve never really felt like I’ve had challenges because I’m a female in what is considered a male dominated industry. This just hasn’t been an issue that I’ve faced in my career. The mentors I mentioned earlier were all male and were tremendous role models. I’ve also had a lot of terrific women role models as well. What I say to young women who are considering the automotive industry is it’s a great place to work, it’s a wonderful industry and if it’s not something you’re considering, you should!
DR – Vernon and I are here as part of your Digital Influencer team, what are your plans for using social media going forward?
Well it’s so important. When I came to Canada four years ago social media certainly wasn’t new but the impact its had on our, or on any industry, since then has been profound. It’s a great opportunity for us to tell our story in a different, non traditional way. It’s a big part of what we’ve done and I’m really proud of Anson and Craig for all that they’ve done to support our efforts, but it’s a team sport. You’re really an important part of what can impact Ford, or any brand, and that’s why it’s so important to really be attuned to the conversation out there.
VC – I was raised in Markham, Ontario and I was here last year when Ford revealed the GT so I’m proud that it’s being build in Markham. How important is Canada and it’s manufacturing role with Ford?
Very important because attracting manufacturing investments in Canada is very, very key. The reality is manufacturing in Canada is shrinking at a time when it’s growing in the U.S. and Mexico. So we’re really excited about Oakville. We’ve got 4500 Canadians now working at the Oakville assembly plant. And of course, the announcement of GT last year, built in Markham, obviously it’s small volume but it’s a big pride point and we’re really excited about that. We also have our Windsor operations. Essex was the only plant in North America to reopen after we went through the crisis and today we have about 750 proud Canadians working there, which is fantastic.
We want more manufacturing investments but we need to make sure we have all of our stakeholders, whether its Unifor, to make sure we have a competitive labour agreement, our government partners to make sure we have incentives that are competitive, and trade agreements that make sense and promote free trade. All those combined make a case for manufacturing investments because at the end of the day whats good for Canada, from an economic point of view, is jobs.
VC: Why is it important to build partnerships with other car manufactures to build services?
Over the years we’ve had a number of joint ventures with some of the other automakers so it’s something that we routinely do and it benefits both. In our industry conversations with companies like Google, or Apple, or other technology companies has been going on now for the past few years. I think we have to look at solutions for the future that make sense for everyone and it may not be one tech company, or one auto company that comes up with a solution.
Autonomous vehicles is an interesting example of what collaborations will look like in the future. There will be a day where we have autonomous vehicles on the road and not just a few. When that day comes the technology will be ready way before the world’s ready. In Canada we have 25 million vehicles on the road today and if we throw some of these vehicles on the road how would they interact with the ones already out there, and how do people become comfortable? How that transforms and evolves over the next couple of years will be very interesting to watch.
DR: What’s the time frame for getting these vehicles on the road?
We’ve publicly said that within the within the next 5 years you’ll see them on the road. I’m saying that we’ll be ready but there’re regulations and a lot that still needs to happen. Ontario has said that they will allow autonomous vehicles on the roads for testing! That’s pretty exciting stuff.
DR: Tell me about some of the community activities that Ford supports.
There is so much that we do, certainly United Way is a very big deal for us. It’s very helpful because then they can go back to the local community and decide who’s in need. The biggest challenge we have is that there’s so many demands and needs out there and it makes it really hard as a company to say “I’m going to help this organization, but I can’t help that one”. So that’s a challenge for us so we’ve really tried to be focused on where we support our efforts.
We also support the Terry Fox Run. I’ve become very familiar with the Terry Fox story which has been an incredible inspiration since I’ve been here. We work very closely with Juvenile Diabetes and one of the things I’m most proud of is our partnership with Free The Children. I wasn’t familiar with Free the Children until I came to Canada and I was blown away. When you think about it, it’s about empowering young kids to give back and inspire them to make a difference. We’re in our third year of the partnership and it has been a whole lot of fun.
VC: I just want to say thank you for Ford’s continued sponsorship of the Raptors, the Leafs and MLSE because a lot of fans became aware about Ford through your interaction with these teams.
I’m so glad you brought that up. The challenge we had a few years back was that everybody knew what the blue oval is, we don’t have an awareness problem, people know Ford. What we needed was for more people to consider Ford and get to know Ford so we changed our sponsorship. We took the blue ovals off the ice, and we created the Ford Fan Deck, so we repurposed elements of our sponsorship so we could tell our story, a lot of which we’ve done on social media. That has been so much fun because people are getting to know Ford just through that different level of communication.
VC: On behalf of MoVernie On The Move, I want to say thank you for your time and to Ford Canada for recognizing the importance of us Social Media Influencers and having us here to cover the North American International Auto Show.
You are very welcome and I should be thanking you. I want you to know that it was a real privilege for me to sit down with the two of you and hang out with a couple of bloggers!
DR: I have one last question and it has to do with food, what’s your favorite restaurant?
Do you really want to know? Ok, it’s Julia’s in Oakville, I love Julia’s, it’s our favorite restaurant.
Edit: As our chat was wrapping up Ms. Craig mentioned that she loves spicy food. You guys know that I never miss an opportunity to tell people about my Trinidadian food, so I started telling her about the goat roti at D Hot Shoppe in Burlington. She mentioned that she’s quite interested, so next time I meet her, hopefully there will be a next time, I’m going to find out if she ever did try a goat roti. Stay tuned!
FORD presentation at the Toronto AutoShow2016:
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Great interview!
Thank you so much Shannon!!