The writer, a Los Angeles freelancer and former Detroit News business reporter, writes a blog, Starkman Approved. This column first appeared in his blog.
I’ve spent plenty of time bashing Ford CEO Jim Farley. Recent features in the Detroit Free Press forced a reassessment. A chief executive who for decades has quietly volunteered at a Detroit homeless shelter reflects a humility that is anything but standard issue in corporate America. As Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang noted, humility is an underrated leadership trait, namely the belief that no task is beneath you.
Detroit Free Press reporter Jamie L. LaReau published multiple stories (see here and here) detailing Farley’s volunteer and fundraising efforts for Detroit’s Pope Francis Center, which provides lifesaving support for more than 200 guests daily, including nutritious meals, access to showers, laundry service, and free clinics offering a range of professional services. The center’s 60,000-square-foot Bridge Housing campus offers residents up to three months of shelter, along with medical, psychological, addiction, social, and job-readiness services designed to help them transition into permanent housing.
Farley has a close friendship with the Rev. Tim McCabe, CEO of the Pope Francis Center, and has allowed McCabe to leverage that relationship to help raise $40 million to build the Bridge Housing campus, which opened in September 2024…