Natalie Knight has a few, not-so-modest priorities for her new job at Stellantis.
The company’s incoming chief financial officer said she wants to help the automaker double its sales, ensure “podium level” profitability and assist in the move to becoming a leader in electric vehicles going forward.
While she’ll admittedly need to learn more about EVs, she has clear ideas about growth in the industry.
“This is a business where I think that’s underestimated today. I think people value us for our profitability, but we also have a big growth ambition,” Knight said of her new employer, which reported $18 billion in net profit and shipped 6 million vehicles last year.
Knight brings a diverse background from her finance roles working for companies including BASF, Adidas and, most recently, chief financial officer of global food retailer Ahold Delhaize, based in the Netherlands, following a similar role at Arla Foods in Denmark. U.S. consumers know Ahold Delhaize through its Food Lion, Giant and Stop & Shop stores.
Knight sat for a virtual roundtable Thursday, answering questions and providing a view of how she’ll approach the top financial job at the world’s fourth-largest automaker. Knight will be filling the role left by Richard Palmer, who had been with Stellantis and its predecessors through Fiat Chrysler Automobiles for 20 years. Knight officially begins her new role Monday, although she has already met many of the people she’ll be working with.
While Knight’s previous work might seem removed from automotive concerns, she noted that she comes from industries that are “very fast and adaptive,” key issues at a time of great transformation for Stellantis. She also comes from a business with a plethora of brands, providing a point of comparison in her transition to Stellantis and its 14 brands, including Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and Dodge.
She said the “performance culture” at Adidas was similar to what she sees at Stellantis.
Knight, who currently lives in the Netherlands, came to Europe in 1992, but her roots are in the United States. She’s a “Seattleite,” she has family in this country and a daughter is preparing to attend New York University.
She’ll be based in Auburn Hills, according to the company.
“I’m very American in my way of speaking, in many of my ways of thinking. I’ve lived here in Europe for a long time, so I consider myself a pretty nice combination of the two, but I’ve been very, very excited to get back to the U.S.,” she said.
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Knight said she’ll be looking at a few areas coming in as the new CFO to help Stellantis make its next steps forward. She highlighted the fact that the company is now years past the 2021 merger that created it, providing a point of connection with Ahold Delhaize, which finalized a merger in 2016. She said Stellantis has done well to date but the job isn’t complete.
“I think this has been, as far as I’m concerned, an as-good-as-it-gets integration in terms of merger, ahead of all of the synergy targets. You see people very energized in the business, but I also know from the businesses I’ve been in, it isn’t just about succeeding for two or three years, it’s about how do you actually make the next steps after you‘ve gotten the low-hanging fruit to really make the transformation as an organization,” she said.
On a question about whether her focus is on cutting costs, Knight said she views her approach not as a cost-cutter, “but certainly continuous improvement oriented is something that’s a big orientation for me.” She referenced a program at her most recent company called Save for Our Customers, where “we pull more than a billion (euros) out every year in terms of savings and we can direct it into the customer pricing and, potentially, associates.”
Knight was also asked about upcoming labor talks in the United States, with contracts with the UAW set to expire in September. Analysts have not been shy about forecasting a strike, possibly involving Stellantis or one of the other members of the Detroit Three, and the union hasn’t shied away from the topic.
Knight called it early days in terms of those conversations, but she said she’s no stranger to unions or strikes at her past companies, noting that collaboration and listening will be key entering into “a more challenging economic period.”
What will be essential for the future is determining “how do we work together as one collective group in the U.S. but also the other regions to ensure we’re really successful going forward,“ she said.
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber.