Engineer to Head Global Purchasing at Ford

Ford Motor Co. has chosen Hau Thai-Tang to become group vice president for global purchasing on Aug. 1. He will succeed Tony Brown, who is retiring after 11 years in the position.

Thai-Tang, 48, currently is vice president of engineering for global product development for the Ford and Lincoln brands. The Vietnam native is a past executive director of global product programs, director of advanced product creation and director of Ford's Special Vehicle Team.

He was chief engineer for the 2005 Ford Mustang and, in 1993, served as a race engineer for Mario Andretti and Nigel Mansell on Ford's Newman-Haas IndyCar team.

He earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1988 and a masters degree in business administration from the University of Michigan in 1993.

Thai-Tang's global engineering duties will be assumed by Kumar Galhotra, who currently heads Ford's Asia-Pacific product development.

Galhotra has held numerous product development assignments at Ford in Africa, Asia Pacific and South America and headed global program management and product planning for Mazda Motor Corp. He also was chief engineer for the Ford Escape/Mazda Tribute/Mercury Mariner SUV program in the early 2000s.