Jacques Nasser

Jacques Albert Nasser (Arabic: جاك نصر; born 12 December 1947) is a Lebanese Australian American business executive and philanthropist. Known for a management career at Ford Motor Company spanning several decades and continents, from 1999 to 2001 he served as Ford's CEO and president. He subsequently was a partner at One Equity Partners (JPMorgan), as well as on the boards of British Sky Broadcasting He is also currently on the advisory board of Altimetrik Lebanon on 27 December 1947. At four years of age Nasser moved with his family to Melbourne, Australia. He speaks four languages: working at the head office in Australia. He was also dubbed "Black Jack" for his ability to keep numbers north of red. and Fortune in June 1998 described Nasser as "heir apparent" to Ford CEO Alex Trotman, who was soon to retire. Nasser announced that he would transform Ford, according to The Economist, into a "consumer-products and services company". He stated he would work to help Ford surpass GM in US market share, and would also try to make Ford less reliant on pickup truck sales

Nasser promptly instituted a number of changes as CEO, closing plants that were losing money and selling unprofitable operations. He also instituted a new human resources policy mandating that 10 percent of low-performing managers could be subject to termination, arguing that new people and turnover were good for the company. He also instituted a program that gave internet access and home computers to employees. and it grew to include responsibility for the Lincoln, Mercury, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo brands. To reinvigorate certain brand lines, Nasser brought in car designer J Mays.

He diversified Ford's businesses to include e-commerce, junkyards, auto-repair shops, Ford's profits in 1999 were US$6.5 billion ($A9.94 billion), which Drive.com claims was the largest "ever made in the world car industry." Firestone responded by arguing that Ford Explorers had caused the accidents, not its tires, while Nasser defended the Explorer as one of the safer SUVs on the market. On 6 September 2000, Nasser and Bridgestone executive Masatoshi Ono confronted a US Congressional sub-committee on the recall. After numerous class action lawsuits, Firestone ultimately recalled millions of tires later that year, with Ford Motor using AUS$4.4 billion of its own funds to replace Firestone tires on its vehicles. Nasser's manager evaluation system had also proved controversial at Ford, Ford settled several lawsuits over the system in late 2001 without admitting liability. In October 2001, Nasser retired from his position as Ford's CEO. He was succeeded in both positions by William Clay Ford Jr, a role he would maintain until 2017. He remained a One Equity partner until 2014, ending an 18-month search to find a replacement for the retiring Don Argus. The Wall Street Journal claimed that "analysts welcomed the appointment," and that Nasser had possibly been selected because BHP was "looking for the stability of another long-term chairman." which the Australian Financial Review dubbed strategic for the "new era."

On 5 December 2012, Smart Company named Nasser No. 6 on a list of the "most powerful people in Australian boardrooms." Nasser became a board member at 21st Century Fox in 2013, with Nasser stating publicly that although "we bought exactly what we thought we were buying [in the US]," the timing had been off. After the deadly Bento Rodrigues dam disaster in Brazil on 5 November 2015, Nasser announced that BHP would be permitting an external investigation into the incident, with findings to be released publicly. In October 2016, he announced he planned to step down as chairman in 2017, and would be overseeing the board during the selection of a successor. In June 2017, BHP announced that BHP board member Ken MacKenzie had been selected to succeed Nasser as chairman effective on 1 September 2017. Nasser retired as a director and chairman of BHP.

Since 2015, he is a board member of the largest Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding, which is a long time Ford partner through its subsidiary Ford Otosan.

In 2018, Nasser backed the Australian financial-advice software company Ignition Advice. In March 2019, when 21st Century Fox sold assets to Disney and formed Fox Corporation, Nasser was announced as one of the new company's board members. As of 2021, Nasser was a member of the four-person advisory board of Altimetrik. He was also on the chairman's panel of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

Honors and philanthropy Nasser was named 'Automobile Industries Man of the Year' in 1999 by the Retail Motor Industry Organization. In 2002 of the National Order of the Cedar, At the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours in Australia he was named a Companion of the Order of Australia for his "leadership in the mining sector, development of sustainable policies and philanthropy." that assist individual students, including the Jacques Nasser Scholarship in Entrepreneurship at RMIT University in Melbourne, the Jacques Nasser Scholarship for MBA students at the American University of Beirut, and the Jacques Nasser Scholarship at the INSEAD School of Business in France. He also founded the Jacques Nasser Rural and Regional Scholarship at RMIT University and has supported organizations such as Focus: HOPE, a training centre in Detroit. Nasser created the Jacques Nasser Scholarship Fund in 2004, which provides needs-based scholarships to RMIT students for "global entrepreneurship travel experiences." In 2021 he then started the Jacques Nasser Fund for Innovation, which funds startups which use technology in ways that "drive positive social impact."

Personal life Nasser and his ex-wife Jennifer, By 2009 Nasser was based primarily out of his home in Michigan, Described as a fan of racing, He owns a 1961 Lincoln Continental.