Troy A. Clarke has been appointed president and CEO of Navistar International Corp. (IW 500/86), effective April 15, 2013. Clarke, currently the company's president and chief operating officer, will also join the board.
Lewis B. Campbell, who has served as executive chairman and interim CEO since August 2012, will step down from those positions and from the board.
"Over the past six months, Navistar has made significant progress on many important fronts, including on our three near-term priorities: improving quality, meeting each of our clean engine launch milestones, and delivering on our 2013 operating plan," Campbell said. "When I assumed the interim CEO role last August, I was prepared to stay as long as necessary to oversee the company through a transition period, and today I am pleased to announce our turnaround is firmly underway and our return to profitability is clearly in sight. I am also delighted that the board and I have decided that Troy is the right executive to lead the company forward at this time, and I am confident Navistar will continue to build on its momentum – improving performance and quality for customers and creating shareholder value."
James H. Keyes, who has served as a board member since 2002, will become non-executive chairman.
"We believe that separating the chairman and CEO roles at this time will enable Troy to focus exclusively on continuing to successfully execute the company's turnaround plan and putting the company on a path to profitability entering fiscal year 2014," Keyes added.
Prior to serving as president and COO of Navistar, Clarke, 57, served as president of Navistar Asia Pacific. He joined Navistar in January 2010 after a 35-year career at General Motors, where he held numerous leadership positions, including president of General Motors North America, president and managing director of GM's Mexico operation, vice president of manufacturing and labor relations, and president of GM Asia Pacific. He has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from General Motors Institute, as well as an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan.
Keyes, 72, retired as chairman of the board of Johnson Controls, Inc., an automotive system and facility management and control company, in 2003, a position he had held since 1993. He served as chief executive officer of Johnson Controls, Inc. from 1988 until 2002.
Prior to joining Navistar, Campbell, 66, served as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Textron Inc., a multi-industry company operating a global network of aircraft, defense and intelligence, industrial and finance businesses. He retired as chief executive officer from Textron in December 2009 and continued as non-executive chairman until he retired from the board in August 2010. He joined Textron after a 24-year career at General Motors. Campbell is a 2012 inductee into the IndustryWeek Manufacturing Hall of Fame.
Navistar produces International-brand commercial and military trucks, MaxxForce diesel engines, and IC Bus school and commercial buses.