‘Man of eternal pullover’ revitalised Fiat, Chrysler
When the city of Turin held an allnight party for 250,000 people in July 2007, it was an extravagant show, with a fireworks display on the banks of the River Po. Special events were held in public squares, bars and restaurants. The occasion was not the hosting of a World Cup or Olympic Games. Rather, the local car manufacturer was celebrating the launch of the new Fiat 500.
This was the sort of spectacle that used to happen regularly in Fiat’s home city, but for many years the mood in car manufacturing circles had been depressed; the Agnellis, once the city’s ruling princes, were gone, and workers had been laid off by the thousand.
The company was now roaring back with a modern mini designed to resemble the tiny
1957 Cinquecento that had put many Italians in four wheels for the first time.
It had been a remarkable turnaround. When Sergio Marchionne, who has died aged
66, was brought in to run Fiat in 2004, he was its fifth chief executive in two years and had never spent a day working in Italy. He also had no experience of the car industry. ‘‘I like to fix things and, to be blunt, Fiat needs a fix right now,’’ said Marchionne, who had a reputation for ruthlessness and a sense of urgency.
At the time of his appointment, Fiat was in an unhealthy relationship with General Motors (GM), and both parties needed a fresh start. Among Marchionne’s first achievements was persuading GM to pay
US$2 billion to end the affair.
Turning to Fiat itself, Marchionne shed swaths of middle management, reduced production lines, cleaned up accounting practices and halved the time it took to bring models to market. ‘‘When I took over, there was a smell of death,’’ he said. ‘‘We spit blood to clean up and restart Fiat.’’
The trade unions claimed he did so by savaging workers’ rights. In 2006, the Fiat Group made a profit of €2b. The Sunday Times noted: ‘‘The Italian business community is unanimous: Marchionne has worked a miracle.’’
Watching from across the Atlantic was President Barack Obama, who invited Marchionne to do much the same for the bankrupt Chrysler, with the assistance of loans from the US government, which Marchionne prided himself in repaying early. Moaning of the ‘‘shyster’’ rates charged on the loans, he was accused of antisemitism. He apologised. In 2009 Fiat took a stake in Chrysler, insisting the time was right for the industry to discuss consolidation.
By the time ill health forced him to step down this month, the net result of his 14 years at Fiat’s steering wheel had been to boost the company’s share price more than tenfold. The man who famously worked 14 to 16-hour days, seven days a week, each day of the year, explained how it was done. ‘‘This business,’’ he said, ‘‘if you do it at least the way I think it should be done, it’s allconsuming.’’
Sergio Marchionne was born in Chieti, east of Rome. He was 14 when his father retired from the police, moving the family to Ontario in Canada. He said he ‘‘lost six years’’ trying to rid himself of his Italian accent to please Canadian girls. He read philosophy and law, and did an MBA.
His first job, in 1983, was as a tax specialist with Deloitte & Touche in Canada. He joined Fiat’s board of directors in May 2003 and, 13 months later, days after the death of the Fiat chairman Umberto Agnelli, he moved into the chief executive’s office. It was undoubtedly the biggest challenge he had faced.
‘‘Imagine showing up in June 2004 and being the fifth guy trying to resuscitate what appeared to most people to be a cadaver,’’ he said. At weekends he inspected the toilets. ‘‘I changed everything. How can you expect the workers to make a quality product and oblige them to live with such degrading facilities?’’
In 1987 he married Orlandina, an ItalianAmerican. They had two sons, who both live with their mother in Switzerland. The marriage did not last and, by 2012, he was living with Manuela Battezzato, 47, who works in the Fiat-Chrysler press office.
While he demonstated a tough exterior, Marchionne had a tender side. A reporter who spent almost a summer pursuing him for a feature returned home to find a gift for his daughter with a letter that read: ‘‘I’m sorry to have ruined your holiday by keeping your father busy.’’
Unsurprisingly, there were trappings of luxury. He drove a Ferrari and said: ‘‘When you’re pissed off, there’s nothing better than going to 300kmh.’’
In contrast to most Italian executives, he shunned expensive suits in favour of a trademark dark sweater. Known in Italy as ‘‘the man of the eternal pullover’’, he always wore black, to save time picking clothes in the morning.
‘‘It’s an allocation of time and resources,’’ he said. ‘‘I like simplicity almost to the point of being monastic.’’ –
His family moved to Canada when he was 14. He said he ‘‘lost six years’’ trying to rid himself of his Italian accent to please Canadian girls.