Kumar Galhotra Makes 2024 MotorTrend Power List

March 5, 2024 11:50 am

As Ford Authority reported yesterday, United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain has been recognized as the 2024 MotorTrend Person of the Year – an award that Ford CEO Jim Farley previously won back in 2022. However, the union head wasn’t the only automotive figurehead to make the cut on the latest version of the rag’s annual list of who’s who in the industry, as he was joined by a number of Blue Oval execs as well – a list that includes Chief Operating Officer (COO) Kumar Galhotra, who rocketed up to ninth in the rankings this year after coming in at number 46 out of 50 last year.

Kumar Galhotra – a long-time Blue Oval veteran who originally joined the company in 1988 – has held a variety of roles in the years since, including in the areas of product development and product strategy, the president of North America, Lincoln group vice president, Ford’s chief marketing officer, president of Ford Americas and the company’s International Markets Group, and president of Ford Blue before becoming COO last October.

“Galhotra started 2023 as president of Ford Blue, the side of the business that handles the internal combustion vehicles that generates the profit needed to invest in electric vehicles and advanced technologies,” MotorTrend wrote of its selection. “He did such a good job that he was promoted to chief operating officer, a position that had been vacant. Galhotra is a quiet, effective, and experienced executive at Ford, now in charge of all global vehicle engineering and cycle planning for ICE and hybrid programs, the supply chain, and manufacturing. In other words, he is the man who must ensure Ford makes quality vehicles that make money.”

In his latest role, Kumar Galhotra oversees all of Ford’s global vehicle engineering and cycle planning, ICE and hybrid programs, supply chain management, and manufacturing of vehicles on behalf of all the company’s business units, reporting directly to CEO Jim Farley.

We’ll have more on the 2024 MotorTrend Power List soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for ongoing Ford news coverage.

By Brett Foote

Brett's lost track of all the Fords he's owned over the years and how much he's spent modifying them, but his current money pits include an S550 Mustang and 13th gen F-150.