Nasser, Jac(ques) (1947– )

Lebanese-born Australian automotive executive. Nasser was appointed president and CEO of the Ford Motor Company in 1999, and attempted to transform the world's second largest carmaker into a global company. Nasser acquired the car-making division of Volvo for $6.45 billion, the UK exhausts and brakes chain Kwik Fit, and appointed new executives, including the former BMW German executive Wolfgang Reitzle to run Ford's premier brands division, which bought Land Rover for $3 billion from BMW in early 2000. In 2000 he was at the centre of one of the largest product recalls in the car industry, involving 6.5 million Firestone tyres fitted to the best-selling Ford Explorer, in the USA. Ford and Firestone severed their relationship in early 2001, following the recall of another 13 million tyres. Nasser was forced to resign in October 2001.

From 1975, Nasser worked in Ford's International Automotive Operations. His executive assignments in the late 1970s and 1980s included the negotiation of Ford's South African joint venture programme in 1982, and a business plan for Ford's Hermosillo (Mexico) Assembly Plant in 1983. He was appointed the first director and vice-president of Finance and Administration for Autolatina, Ford's South American joint venture with Volkswagen, in 1987. There he worked on the Ford 2000 programme to merge the core US and international operations, putting Ford's product development on a global basis. Nasser returned to the loss-making Ford of Australia as president and CEO in 1990, where he cut jobs and turned the business back into profit. Promoted to chairman of Ford of Europe (and a Ford vice-president) in 1993, he undertook a similar rationalization programme, and introduced new models, which included the bubble-shaped Ka economy car. He became group vice-president for Product Development in 1994, and then executive vice-president and president of Ford Automotive Operations in 1996.

Nasser was born in Amyun, Lebanon, but moved to Australia at the age of four. He graduated from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology with a degree in business studies, and joined Ford of Australia in 1968 as a financial analyst. Transferred in 1973 to the US headquarters to join the finance staff of the North American Truck Operation, Nasser returned to Australia later that year as manager in profit analysis, later becoming manager of the product programming and timing area.