FCA saviour passes at 66

Sergio Marchionne, the former chief executive who rescued Fiat Chrysler from the Global Financial Crisis, died this week.

Marchionne was just 66 when he passed away on Thursday (AEDT) having relinquished his position after shoulder surgery resulted in serious complications.

Marchionne was reportedly receiving “recurring treatment for more than a year” by University Hospital Zurich, in Switzerland.

The hospital says in a statement “Although all the options offered by cutting-edge medicine were utilised,” he was suffering “serious illness”.

Fiat Chrysler says “due to medical privacy, the company had no knowledge of the facts relating to Marchionne’s health.
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Chairman John Eklann says Marchionne, who rescued Fiat from likely collapse in the mid 2000s, and merged with Chrysler after its 2009 Global Financial Crisis bankruptcy, “always made a difference, wherever his work took him and in the lives of so very many people”.

“He taught us to think differently and to have the courage to change, often in unconventional ways, always acting with a sense of responsibility for the companies and their people,” Elkann said last weekend.

Elkann says in a statement of regarding his passing:
“Unfortunately, what we feared has come to pass.
Sergio Marchionne, man and friend, is gone.

“I believe that the best way to honor his memory is to build on the legacy he left us, continuing to develop the human values of responsibility and openness of which he was the most ardent champion.

“My family and I will be forever grateful for what he has done.
Our thoughts are with Manuela, and his sons Alessio and Tyler.”