Raj Nair, the Ford Motor Co. executive ousted earlier this year over unspecified “inappropriate behavior,” has been named president and COO of Multimatic Inc., the Canadian supplier, on Friday. The appointment was effective May 7.
Multimatic works extensively with Ford, building the GT supercar — which was created while Nair was Ford’s head of product development — near Toronto.
“Raj brings an extensive amount of experience in the auto industry both in product development and manufacturing,” Michael Guttilla, the company’s head of sales and marketing, said in an interview. “He is a real good fit for extending what Multimatic’s purpose is.”
Nair will split time between Canada and the company’s offices in Southfield, Mich., among its other global locations, Guttilla said. He’ll be responsible for each of the company’s business units, including manufacturing and engineering.
Nair, 53, abruptly left Ford in February after an internal investigation found that “certain behavior by Nair was inconsistent with the company’s code of conduct,” the automaker said.
Ford has not divulged the nature of the complaint, which a spokesman said was submitted anonymously through a 24-hour company hotline. Ford said it had not previously received any such allegations against Nair.
“The situation was thoroughly vetted,” Guttilla said. “Multimatic has the highest standards for all of our employees. We expect everybody to live up to and honor those high ethical standards. We have no concern that it will be an issue.”
Before being named head of North America in May 2017, Nair was Ford’s head of product development and chief technical officer. In addition to the GT in 2016, he oversaw the launch of the the aluminum-bodied F-150, the 50th-anniversary Mustang and a plethora of other prominent vehicles. Nair took delivery of his own GT less than two weeks before leaving Ford.
Nair started at Ford in 1987 as a body and assembly operations launch engineer and held various positions on more than 11 vehicle programs in 13 assembly plants, according to Ford’s media website. He also worked on assignments in Europe, South America and Asia Pacific.