A member of a new generation of Ford family members is taking on another leadership role at the automaker.
Alexandra Ford English, the daughter of Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford, was named global brand merchandising director for the Dearborn, Michigan, company on Monday.
English, 33, who already serves on the company's board of directors, will push for growth in sales of Ford brand merchandise.
English said Monday that there are passionate Ford fans around the world, and the company wants to offer them merchandise and accessories.
The appointment likely is another step toward ushering in the next generation of company leaders from the Ford family. Bill Ford is 64 and is getting closer to retirement age.
English was elected to Ford's board in May along with Henry Ford III, the son of Edsel Ford, who retired earlier this year after 33 years as a director. Both of the younger Fords are great-great-grandchildren of company founder Henry Ford.
English is the first female director from the Ford family on the company's board. She has been director of corporate strategy since March of last year. Before joining the company in 2017, she ran profit-and-loss operations for the merchandising divisions of Tory Burch and Gap Inc., according to the automaker.
English has a bachelor's degree from Stanford University in Human Biology with a concentration in the Neurobiology and Physiology of Human Behavior. She also has a master of business administration degree from Harvard.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More