The best CEO with an engineering degree

After Bryce Hoffman's American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company, my vote is for Ford CEO Alan Mulally.

From the closing of the book:

"Mulally knew enough to avoid blunders,  He combined in one person an exceptional engineering mind with exceptional financial acumen.  His experience as an aeronautical engineer taught him the importance of shedding weight and streamlining the edges to make planes lighter and faster.  He applied that same approach to the automotive business and made Ford soar.  Mulally also brought a relentless determination to Dearborn that had been lacking at the top of the Glass House.  He had not been nursed on the mythology of the American automobile industry.  Ford's executives, like those at General Motors and Chrysler, could not see beyond their own shared experiences.  The cyclical nature of the business was internalized.  They look it for granted that every success would be followed by failure.  It became a convenient excuse.  They tinkered with the spark plugs and tightened the belts because none of them believed it was possible to tear apart the entire motor and rebuild it.

But that is exactly what Mulally did - and he got all of them to help him do it.  His disciplined approach cut through the company's caustic culture and forced everyone to march in the same direction.  He was tough when he had to be, but Mulally's primary means of motivation was a shared vision - a vision of what Ford had been and could be again.  He taught the other executives how to make decisions based on data instead of boardroom politics.  And once he had, most of the decisions that saved Ford were made by the team as a whole."

This is an excellent lecture that Mulally gave at Stanford: