Dive Brief:

• Automaker Stellantis announced its CFO, Natalie Knight, will be departing from her role as part of a suite of leadership changes, with Doug Ostermann to step into the top finance seat, according to a Thursday press release. Additionally, Stellantis confirmed a formal process has been started to find a successor for CEO Carlos Tavares, who will retire from his seat in 2026.
• A three-year veteran of the company, which produces the Jeep, Maserati and Chrysler brands, Ostermann has served as chief operating officer for its China region since last November. As part of its leadership changes, the Amsterdam-based automaker appointed Gregoire Olivier to succeed Ostermann as COO for China, according to the release.
• The executive leadership shakeups come just a few weeks after Stellantis slashed its financial guidance for 2024, citing “performance issues” in North America, according to a company release. The automaker is also currently at odds with the United Autoworkers, with a potential strike looming by autoworkers at multiple factories in North America, according to a report by the Detroit Free Press.

Dive Insight:

Knight, an alum of grocery giant Ahold Delhaize and shoe brand Adidas AG, took the automaker’s CFO seat last year after the company announced a new plan to double its 2021 net revenues by 2030, CFO Dive previously reported.

Her successor, Ostermann, joined the company in 2021, serving as CFO and head of strategy for the company’s China region before taking on the role of COO for China. Before Stellantis, Ostermann held various executive roles for companies including FCA Fiat Chrysler and Archer Daniels Midland, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The shifts are geared to “redouble the company’s focus on its key business priorities and confront head-on the global challenges facing the industry,” the automaker said. While Stellantis reported a record net profit last year, it has seen sales plummet for the first six months of 2024, provoking criticisms of CEO Tavares and company leadership, according to September CNBC report.

In an open letter to Tavares, the chairman of its U.S. dealer’s council, Keith Farrish, lambasted the CEO for prioritizing short-term North American profits over the long-term health of the business and the reputation of brands including Jeep and Chrysler.

The national dealer council, which represents the 2,600 Stellantis dealers in the U.S., “has been sounding the alarm” to the automaker’s U.S. team for over two years now, “warning that the course you had set for Stellantis in the US was going to be a disaster in the long run,” the letter published Sept.10 reads.

For its full-year 2023, Stellantis reported net profits of €18.6 billion, an 11% jump from the previous year, according to financial materials. That jump contributed to making Tavares one of the highest-paid CEOs in the automotive space, Farrish stated in the letter, with the CEO seeing total compensation of €36.5 million, according to the company’s 2023 remuneration report.    

However, “the reckless short-term decision-making to secure record profits in 2023 has had devastating, yet entirely predictable, consequences in the U.S. market,” Farrish said.

For the first half of 2024, Stellantis reported net profits of €5.6 billion, a 48% decline compared with the prior year period, the company said. Net revenues and operating income also declined, with the latter “primarily due to decreases in North America,” the company said.   

Stellantis took “absolute exception to the letter sent by the president of the Stellantis National Dealer Council (NDC), Kevin Farrish,” the company said in a response published Sept. 11. The company noted it had introduced an “action plan” with the dealers last month and that August sales had increased by 21% compared to the prior month and that its dealer inventory was reduced by approximately 10% for two consecutive months.

Just a few weeks after it issued the letter, the Jeep and Chrysler operator announced it had changed its guidance for 2024, “reflecting decisions to significantly enlarge remediation actions on North American performance issues,” according to the company.

With its revised guidance, Stellantis is now targeting “no more than 330,000 units of dealer inventory by year-end 2024, from a prior timing objective of the first quarter of 2025,” the company said, which include declines of North American shipments by more than 200,000 vehicles for H2 2024. The company is now expecting adjusted operating income margin of between 5.5% - 7.0% for the full year, down from previous guidance in the double digits.

As well as slumping sales, the company is also dealing with a looming strike from potential workers at its North American factories, which leaders for the UAW say could begin “within weeks,” according to a Detroit Free Press report Wednesday.

The union says Stellantis has failed to fulfill terms of a landmark contract inked between the two last year, including plans to reopen a plant in Illinois which has been delayed. Meanwhile, Stellantis has filed multiple lawsuits against the union for what it has termed as “sham grievances,” the Detroit Free Press reported.

In other leadership moves, the company appointed Santo Ficili as CEO of Maserati and Alfa Romeo, Jean-Philippe Imparato as COO with oversight in Europe alongside his current role as CEO of Pro One. Antonio Filosa, Jeep brand CEO, was appointed to the role of North American COO.  

Stellantis declined to comment beyond its Thursday press release.