Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally, 68, has been touted as the front runner to replace Steve Ballmer. Current Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally has moved into second place behind former Nokia chief Stephen Elop in the betting pool as the next Microsoft CEO, according to bookmaker Paddy Power.
As of Monday, Paddy Power had Elop at odds of 4:11 in a listing of potential CEO replacements for outgoing chief Steve Ballmer, meaning someone would have to bet €110 for the chance to take away €40 in profit.
Mulally, whose name resurfaced last week as a serious candidate for the job, was at 3:1 odds, good enough for second on Paddy Power’s chart.
Kara Swisher of the AllThingsD blog, an offshoot of the Wall Street Journal, said on Friday that "sources close to the situation" reported Mulally, 68, had gone to the front of the line of potential CEOs.
Mulally has been the president and CEO of Ford Motor for seven years, and had been widely credited with guiding the automobile maker through the 2008-2009 industry crisis when competitors General Motors and Chrysler went bankrupt and required government bailouts to survive.
He also assumed the job of finishing Ford’s restructuring, dubbed The Way Forward, that began before his hiring.
Mulally started his career at Boeing, where he last served as the president and CEO of its Renton, Washington commercial aircraft division.
When Ballmer was pondering a restructuring of Microsoft – eventually tagged with the slogan of ‘One Microsoft’ – he reportedly consulted with Mulally frequently.
Other candidates forwarded by analysts and pundits have largely been limited to current and former Microsoft employees, including Steven Sinofsky (12:1), the leader of the Windows group who was ousted last year; and Tony Bates (12:1), who joined Microsoft after it acquired Skype, and who now leads business development and evangelism at the company. A few without ties to Microsoft, however, have been mentioned, including Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (20:1), and Mike Lawrie (10:1), the CEO of Computer Sciences, a multinational IT service provider that is also in the middle of a turn-around project.
A special committee composed of several Microsoft board members is conducting the CEO search. Headed by John Thompson, the board’s lead independent director, the committee also includes Bill Gates, the company’s co-founder and chairman of the board.
Microsoft has said virtually nothing about its search for a new leader other than to maintain that the process continues. Nor has it set a deadline more specific than the 12 months that Ballmer noted when he announced he would retire.
IDG News Service
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