Former Ford COO Nick Scheele.
He was dapper, affable and erudite. He was also a bit reluctant when asked to take on the mounting disaster that was Ford Motor Co. at the beginning of the new Millennium. But Nick Scheele was nothing if not loyal, and despite worsening health problems and a desire to simply fade away into the gentle bliss of retirement, in 2001 the British executive agreed to serve as the Detroit maker’s chief operating officer.
Scheele helped guide Ford through some of the worst times in its more than 100-year history, setting the stage for its unexpected recovery. He also propped up the long-troubled British maker Jaguar, helping restore its once glamorous image as one of the automotive world’s design leaders.
Ultimately, the man described by London’s Telegraph as having “a backbone of steel” did get his chance to retire, more or less. But even after leaving Ford in 2005, Nick Scheele continued to find other ways to serve until his death last week at the age of 70.
Born in Essex on January 3, 1944, the grandson of German immigrants had an almost movie star quality, a refinement and presence, as well as the command of the language — actually, several of them — that has long defined British film stars. But he had, instead, been an organization man, Scheele spending 38 years rising through the corporate ranks, most of it in the U.S. and Mexico.
But it was in 1992 that he first came to wide notice. Three years after Ford acquired the foundering Jaguar, Scheele returned to England as part of a frantic effort to salvage a company then losing about $1 million a day.
Bill Ford Jr. and Nick Scheele during a corporate shareholders meeting.
“It was a horrible, horrible time,” Scheele later noted, and one that required him to make difficult and initially unpopular decisions. But the executive also knew that Jaguar couldn’t cost cut its way to prosperity, and he authorized a series of new products that, by 1999, when Scheele wrapped up his assignment, had helped restore the maker’s image of building some of the industry’s most beautiful products.
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In his new job, as chairman of Ford of Europe, Scheele only heightened his image as a man who “had an iron fist inside his velvet glove,” as one observer put it at the time. In 2000, he ordered the end of car production at the maker’s massive Dagenham plant, in the UK, a move that drew vicious criticism, even though industry analysts hailed it as the no-nonsense move Ford needed to staunch the losses at its money-losing European operations.
It was a time of turmoil, and Scheele was caught up in the swirl. In 2001, Ford fired its CEO, the bold Jacques Nasser, chairman and family heir Bill Ford Jr. taking on both corporate roles. Scheele rushed back from Europe to serve as Ford’s top lieutenant – and the automaker’s new president and chief operating officer.
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He quickly bought into Bill Ford’s mandate that the automaker “return to basics,” shedding many of the far-reaching acquisitions made under Nasser, including a chain of automotive service facilities and a scrap company. Industry analysts “aren’t going to like everything they’re going to get,” he warned at the time, “at least not initially.”
Nick Scheele, then head of Ford of Europe, with the new Mondeo at the 2000 Paris Motor Show.
According to more than a few of those analysts, Ford had become the weakest of Detroit’s Big Three by the time Scheele arrived. Ironically, it would eventually be the only one of the domestic makers to survive the coming Great Recession without having to resort to bankruptcy and a federal bailout.
Scheele would wind up leaving before Ford faced that test. Those close to the executive knew that he’d spent much of his last few years at the company in significant pain, he desperately needed a hip replacement – obvious as he walked from one meeting to another – but couldn’t and wouldn’t take the time off to have the surgery until shortly after his retirement in February 2005.
By then, he had already received one of his home country’s highest honors, Scheele awarded a knighthood – the Order of St. Michael and St. George – in 2002 for services to British exports.
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Scheele also took on a growing role in the educational world, in 2002 becoming a chancellor for the University of Warwick, and later serving as advisor to both Coventry University and the University of Durham, as well as the Fulbright Commission.
Scheele also took on a number of advisory roles in the corporate world for companies as diverse as British American Tobacco and Grupo Metalsa.
Sir Nick Scheele is survived by his wife of 47 years Rosamond, as well as two sons and a daughter.