Dearborn, Mich., USA - December 15, 2014, Dearborn, Mich., USA - Ford Motor Company announced the election of William E. Kennard to the company's board of directors from January 1, 2015.
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Mr. Kennard is the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. He currently is chairman and co-founder of Velocitas Partners LLC, an asset management firm, and a member of the Operating Executive Board of Staple Street Capital, a private equity firm. He serves on the boards of directors of AT&T Inc., MetLife and Duke Energy Corporation.
Mr. Kennard will serve on the Ford board of directors' Nominating and Governance Committee.
Mr. Kennard's career spans more than three decades in law, telecommunications and private equity. Before his appointment as FCC chairman in 1997, he served as the FCC's general counsel from 1993 to 1997. As U.S. Ambassador to the European Union from 2009 to 2013, he worked to eliminate regulatory barriers to commerce and to promote transatlantic trade, investment and job creation.
In addition to his public service, Mr. Kennard was from 2001 to 2009 a managing director of The Carlyle Group, where he led the firm's investments in the telecommunications and media sectors.
Mr. Kennard also has served on several boards in the fields of telecommunications and media, insurance and energy, as well as on the boards of various non-profit organizations. He currently serves as a Fellow of the Yale Corporation and is a member of Secretary of State John Kerry's Foreign Affairs Policy Board. He is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School.
In addition, long-time Ford board member Homer Neal has elected to leave the board, effective December 31, after serving 18 years.
Since being elected to the Ford board of directors on January 1, 1997, Mr. Neal served as chairman of the Sustainability Committee and as a member of the Nominating and Governance Committee. He also served as a member of the board of managers of Ford Global Technologies, LLC, a wholly-owned entity that manages the company's intellectual property. ■