Ford Motor Credit Co. is making sure steps into the mobility space, with a little help from a new executive addition to its C-Suite.
Joy Falotico was appointed chief operating officer for Ford Credit, and a vice president for parent Ford Motor Co., effective Jan. 1. In her new role, Falotico is responsible for the company’s global operations in the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. She also leads marketing, sales and brand, and business center operations.
Falotico is not new to Ford Credit, though. She joined the captive in 1989, and most recently served as executive vice president of marketing, sales, and strategic planning. About two months into her new role, Falotico spoke to Auto Finance News about her priorities, mobility, and tech. Following are edited excerpts from the interview.
Auto Finance News: What will be your primary focus at Ford Credit?
Joy Falotico: The way I am thinking about it is twofold. First, is focusing on our core business, and second, looking at emerging opportunities. We will continue to originate the business the right way, with the focus on our customers and dealers, and really supporting Ford’s growth. In terms of emerging opportunities, we are looking to support Ford in its transition from an auto company, to an auto and mobility company. We always look to see what role can Ford Credit play in that, what do our customers tell us? We have had a lot of opportunity to talk about some of our experiments recently.
AFN: Would you highlight any of those experiments?
JF: One of our pilots is the Ford Credit Link app, where three to six people will be able to share a single lease. We are excited about that — and this is really in response to the feedback we receive from our customers. Another one is our Lincoln app: Lincoln Mileage. We invited 4,000 Lincoln customers to create this pilot with us. The other one to highlight is FordPass, where we get to leverage our expertise as a finance provider for delivering FordPay digital wallet.
AFN: Will Ford Credit continuing to experiment?
JF: Yes, I think we are going to continue to experiment and look to ensure we are able to support our mobility solutions, keeping an eye on what’s going on in the industry.
AFN: What are some of the challenges?
JF: The auto industry is becoming more and more complex. It’s really becoming more fast-changing, and tech has been the enabler in that. That’s something we have to deal with every day. Then there are the usual challenges, like the very competitive market, or changes in the regulatory environment that we continuously look to respond to.
The interview originally appeared in the March issue of Auto Finance News.