Mark Fields will become Ford's CEO on July 1, replacing Alan Mulally, who was hired in 2006.
The automaker was posting massive losses at the time.
One of Mulally's first moves was to insist that his executives honestly disclose problems at a required weekly meeting, using a red-coded slide for "big problem!"
That ran contrary to decades of cultural dysfunction at Ford, when telling the truth could mean getting fired.
Fields was the first to test if the new boss meant what he was saying.