Ford Motor poaches key auto exec from Apple
Ford Motor Company on Tuesday announced that it has hired Doug Field, a former Apple and Tesla executive, as the company's chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer. His appointment to Ford is effective today, and he reports to Ford President and CEO Jim Farley.
Field most recently served as Apple's VP of Special Projects, where he reportedly ran Project Titan, Apple's on-again, off-again electric car initiative. The car effort has seen something of a revolving door of executives over the years. Before his most recent turn at Apple, Field was SVP of engineering at Tesla.
"Doug is one of the world's most respected engineering and product design leaders and has been a driving force behind breakthrough products across auto, tech and mobility, including at Apple, Tesla and Segway," Farley said in a statement. "His talent and commitment to innovation that improves customers' lives will be invaluable as we build out our Ford+ plan to deliver awesome products, always-on customer relationships and ever-improving user experiences."
Field will lead Ford's Embedded Software and Hardware organization. His role includes a range of responsibilities, including leading the design of Ford's Blue Oval Intelligence tech stack, delivering customer-facing features, developing tech platforms to deploy across Ford products and managing relationships with tech partners and the developer ecosystem.