Alan Mulally to retire as Ford CEO, report says

Alan Mulally could be ready to take his long-rumored retirement as soon as May--and his replacement as Ford CEO will be chief operating officer Mark Fields, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Mulally, the 68-year-old executive that came to Ford from Boeing in 2006, is widely credited with marshaling Ford's financial resources and his manufacturing experience to save the company from bankruptcy. Before GM and Chrysler declared their own bankruptcies in 2009, Mulally and Ford had put the company's material assets--down to its logos--as collateral on a $23 billion loan that enabled it to restructure its global operations.

That restructuring helped Ford cruise through the 2008-2009 recession, and also helped it complete a transition from a company overstocked with poorly performing luxury brands such as Jaguar and Volvo, to a company focused on "One Ford"--a product revival of its namesake brand and a reduction in global platforms and manufacturing complexity.