Casesa will lead the company’s strategic planning globally. This includes helping to steer the company’s investments in new products, technologies and business models supporting a focus on innovation and Ford Smart Mobility.

Casesa is tasked with working with the company’s business unit and skill team leaders to enhance existing business strategies and to identify and evaluate new opportunities leading to profitable growth. His work will be integrated into Ford’s current process for driving results, which includes constantly understanding the changing environment and continuously improving its plans.

Before joining Ford, Casesa was senior managing director of Guggenheim Partners, where he led the firm’s automotive investment banking activities. In this role since 2010, he advised many of the auto industry’s leading companies and investors on strategic transactions.

Prior to Guggenheim, he spent nearly 20 years as a leading automotive analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co. and Schroders PLC. He also served as a product planning analyst at General Motors and was a co-owner of domestic and import auto dealerships in the US northeast region.