"There is no change to what we announced in November," Mark Fields, Ford's chief operating officer, said of Mulally's announcement he would stay at Ford through next year.
While Mulally has said he will stay at Ford through 2014, the board has indicated it would not stand in his way if he chooses to leave earlier.
Fields was responding to continued media reports that Mulally is a frontrunner to succeed Steven Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft. Other strong candidates are Nokia's Stephen Elop and Microsoft's Tony Bates.
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If the 68-year-old Mulally does leave, Fields is the heir apparent. As part of succession planning, Ford's board of directors promoted Fields, 52, last year to the new No. 2 position of COO.
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Fields today said he is focused on his COO job, running Ford's day-to-day operations and chairing the weekly meeting that keeps the company on track while Mulally works on long-term planning — but still attends many of the Thursday meetings that he instituted when he arrived at Ford.
Fields said he finds his new role "very fulfilling" and he loves working with the top management team while Mulally is focused on the big picture. Fields said all the speculation about Mulally leaving is not proving distracting.
Mulally has put his stamp on the automaker since he was hired from Boeing seven years ago and is credited with changing a culture of infighting into a more cohesive team dedicated to corporate turnaround and excellence.
Fields oversaw the Americas before his promotion. North America has been the revenue driver for the global automaker that continues to lose money in Europe, while investing heavily in plants an! d new products for Asia Pacific.
Fields spoke after a kickoff event for the 2013 United Way campaign for Southeastern Michigan. He is the campaign chairman.
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