• by Karl Greenberg , August 7, 2007

Chrysler is starting anew today under the aegis of New York-based Cerberus Capital Management. The new name, Chrysler, LLC, brings new leadership. Bob Nardelli, who has never worked in the automotive industry, will replace Tom LaSorda as chairman and CEO--quashing rumors that former Chrysler COO and current Cerberus advisor Wolfgang Bernhard would take the post.

Nardelli was most recently chairman, president and CEO of The Home Depot. Before The Home Depot, where he had been since 2000, Nardelli held senior executive positions at General Electric.

Cerberus Capital, in a release, said Bernhard turned down the CEO role due to personal and family reasons. COO Eric Ridenour is also departing, and Chrysler says that position will not be filled.

Meanwhile, Tom LaSorda--Chrysler's CEO until now--has been appointed vice chairman and president of Chrysler LLC, reporting to Nardelli. He says he has no plans to leave the company. Nardelli joins Ford CEO Alan Mulally as the most recent executive from beyond the car business to take tiller of a domestic automaker. He says his outsider status is not a detriment. "I bring a fresh set of eyes, a new perspective. It's important to know what you know and what you don't know. While I'm new to Chrysler and the car industry, manufacturing and transportation is business I know and like and grew up in."

To promote the ownership changes in tandem with its new lifetime powertrain warranty, Chrysler Monday launched a corporate advertising effort touting the "New Chrysler" and re-introducing a new 3-D treatment of the Pentamark corporate logo, first introduced in 1962. The low-key corporate campaign, which runs through the month, comprises print, Internet and radio and bears the theme, "The New Chrysler: Get Ready for the Next Hundred Years."

One of the two print ads that the company says it will run in magazines and on the Internet shows three toddlers seated in car seats, representing the Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge brands, and dressed in outfits that match the attitudes of the individual brands. The headline reads, "Ready for the Next Generation." The ads broke Monday in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and local papers nationwide, as well as in magazines like Time, BusinessWeek, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Automotive News, Sports Illustrated, People and Entertainment Weekly. Radio will air in the top 62 markets across the country as well as on Sirius Satellite Radio.

Internet banner ads carrying the same message will run on sites including AOL, MSN and Yahoo. The New Chrysler corporate site is ChryslerLLC.com.

LaSorda, who will also serve as vice chairman of Cerberus Operating and Advisory Company, says that the company will use the Pentamark with restraint. "We won't use the image in product advertising or at dealerships," he says.

He says now that Chrysler is privately owned, it will enjoy a degree of flexibility it hasn't had till now. "With Cerberus, we will be able to focus on strategy, without capital market pressures, to maximize short-term results," he says, adding that the turn-around time for program approval under Cerberus is rapid. "We were going through product approval and product programs and got it returned to us in 36 hours," he says. "The second change is a big focus on cash; it's not about what's going to happen during the quarter, but cash."

Nardelli did not say whether staff cuts are on the horizon. "It's way premature for me to come in with a mandate about white-collar reduction," he says. "We will look to move more quickly, not just on head count, but head content. We are listening, learning and providing leadership. I come here without any mandate."