Antonio Filosa was named new CEO of Stellantis last week.Paulo Whitaker/Reuters
Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for The Globe and Mail.
The appointment of Antonio Filosa as Stellantis’s STLA-N new chief executive officer last week is the triumph of hope over experience.
The board of the world’s No. 4 carmaker had the chance to right the wrongs of former CEO Carlos Tavares, who resigned in December after his disastrous North American strategy sank sales and sent shares of the company into freefall, losing more than two-thirds of their value since early 2024.
In voting unanimously to install Mr. Filosa, an insider who has been the company’s chief operating officer for the Americas for only a few months, the board has set itself up for a potential rerun of Mr. Tavares’s tenure – and may be on a similarly bumpy track that derailed Walt Disney Co. and Boeing Co.
It has also disappointed investors, many of whom wanted an outsider with deep experience in the all-important North American market and especially an understanding of pricing on core brands such as Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram, which are favoured by value-minded car buyers – something Mr. Tavares never figured out.
It’s no surprise that market reaction to Mr. Filosa’s appointment was muted, at best. Stellantis shares, traded in Milan, fell more than 3 per cent on the Wednesday news.
Unless Mr. Filosa can pull off a course correction quickly – a task made even more complicated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs on foreign-made autos – the company’s tenuous financial situation may force it to jettison some of its 14 global brands, including signature marques such as Chrysler, Maserati and Alfa Romeo.
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There are positives. Mr. Filosa is an operations guy, not a finance guy. He knows how to retool for success, including focusing on developing new models, a strategic push that dealers have been craving for a long time.
Also, while his North American operational leadership role is relatively fresh, he was CEO of the Jeep brand and has some affinity with U.S. car buyers’ tastes.
But there are red flags. Stellantis says Mr. Filosa’s 25-year tenure with the company will be a plus because he understands how to navigate its culture.
Long tenures for senior management, however, can be a double-edged sword. In the fast-evolving global automotive sector, the question is this: Is Mr. Filosa too steeped in the old ways of doing things at a time when new thinking is required?
Before he can think about the future, he needs to deal with the mess Mr. Tavares left for him.
The big challenge: winning back loyal North American buyers of bread-and-butter brands such as Jeep, Dodge and Ram, who were alienated by high sticker prices during Mr. Tavares’s leadership.
Stellantis's core brands include Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram, which are favoured by value-minded car buyers.Alessandro Garofalo/Reuters
The former CEO’s misunderstanding of the market and miscalculation of pricing tolerances were so severe that unsold cars and trucks piled up on North American dealer lots during early 2024, reaching almost half a million vehicles last summer.
Sales dropped 20 per cent in the third quarter, layoffs loomed and there were whispers that the company would soon need to unload some of its brands to stay afloat.
The depth of the problems was laid bare in October, when Mr. Tavares shocked investors with a dire profit warning reflecting severe weakness in the crucial North American market, long the source of strong revenues for the company.
Adding insult to injury, Mr. Tavares said at the time he intended to stay at the company until his contract ran out in 2026. That didn’t happen.
True to Mr. Tavares’s prediction, Stellantis’s financial situation has deteriorated further since his October bombshell. The company recently reported a decline of 14 per cent in net revenues for the first quarter of this year. It also withdrew its full-year financial guidance because of tariff-related uncertainties in the U.S. market.
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While investors can breathe a sigh of relief that Mr. Tavares is not sticking around, and Mr. Filosa will take over on June 23, there are concerns that the Stellantis board has not learned its lesson.
For many, Stellantis’s board is rolling the dice with Mr. Filosa, choosing an insider favourite with more than two decades under the same tent as Mr. Tavares rather than listening to a chorus of advice from the marketplace to make the hard decision and go outside for more appropriate credentialed leadership talent.
As Mr. Filosa takes the wheel, he would do well to look at the cautionary tales of Mr. Tavares, former Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun and ex-Disney chief Bob Chapek. All were insiders whose lack of understanding of their businesses destroyed billions of dollars of value – and their boards waited too long to oust them.