FORD MOTOR CO. Family business draws woman

The first female member of the Ford family wants to earn her way to the top.
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
She came out of nowhere. Technically, it was Southampton on New York's Long Island. But to the top brass at Ford Motor Co.'s world headquarters in Dearborn, Mich., it might as well have been somewhere in East Timor.
And her credentials were largely unremarkable: She had worked at a Madison Avenue ad agency, owned an upscale children's boutique (Little Charlotte's Place) and had just received her business degree from New York University.
But she had a key to the executive suite. It wouldn't necessarily get her inside, but it would get her the necessary introductions.
The key was her last name: Ford.
Gave her a job
So in 1995, they gave Elena Ford, the great-great-granddaughter of Henry Ford, a midlevel job in the marketing department. And they waited. Maybe she would be satisfied. Maybe she would be scared off and run back to the Hamptons. After all, no female member of the Ford family had ever worked for the company.
In less than eight years, largely through her own determination, Ford, 36, has worked her way up the ladder. A mother of four who hates to fly, she has logged thousands of miles to meet with automobile dealers, and she is now director of business strategy for Ford's international operations.
She has been credited with initiating the turnaround of Ford sibling Mercury. In 2001, when she was named Mercury's marketing manager, the division had no new cars on the drawing board and morale was low. She began an aggressive campaign to design new cars, and then brought the plan to life. The company now has plans for Mercury versions of a minivan, a small SUV and two sedans.
"It was a team effort," she insisted.
It's business, yes. But it's also personal.
"Growing up in New York, I would sit on my mother's lap and steer the car," Ford said recently from Michigan. "We used to drive the half-mile of country road from my aunt's house to my mother's house. I see that now as just ingrained in me."
Cars make statements
To her, cars are more than modes of transportation. Among other things, they make statements and invoke memories. Ford remembered coming home from school on her 16th birthday and finding a new blue-and-silver Mustang sitting in the garage. There was a big blue bow tied on it.
"It was so cool," she said. "And I really think today, in the automotive business, we don't make a big enough deal out of buying a car. We take it for granted how many cars we'll sell. Ford does 10,000 a day. But buying a car is a huge deal for people."
Her father, Greek shipping executive Stavros Niarchos, divorced her mother shortly after she was born and was not a central figure in her life. At age 10, she decided to drop her last name and become Elena Ford.
She could have stayed in Southampton and run the store. She could have hosted the parties and jetted off to France whenever the mood struck.
Felt drawn to it
But Ford is the largest publicly owned car manufacturer still controlled by the family that founded it. And she felt the same pull her cousin, Ford CEO William Clay Ford Jr., felt. The family business.
"And I have this type-A personality and want to always be involved in things," she said.
She remarried in 1996 to Joe Rippolone, a plumber. Her children are all age 10 and younger.
She has said she would like to be on Ford's board of directors one day. But she insists she will earn her seat. And while she may not have won over everyone at Ford headquarters just yet, she has gained the respect of most of the company's hardest-to-please employees. The car dealers.
"She's definitely had a very positive impact," said Frank Scarritt, owner of Scarritt Lincoln-Mercury in Seminole, Fla., one of the oldest Lincoln-Mercury dealerships in the country. "She is very competent and qualified. And it wasn't just her name."