Apple veteran Peter Stern has been appointed leader of Ford Integrated Services, a department tasked with developing and marketing software-enabled customer experiences across Ford Blue, Model e and Ford Pro.
Stern worked as vice president of services at Apple for over six years and oversaw the launch of many of Apple’s best-known services, including Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade.
Reporting to Ford’s president and CEO Jim Farley, Stern will further develop the BlueCruise hands-free highway driving system, as well as productivity and safety/security services – including those from the Ford Pro Intelligence business. He will also lead several out-of-vehicle customer experience projects and Ford Next.
“This is transformational, because the cornerstone of our Ford+ plan is creating incredible customer services and experiences enabled by great hardware and software,” said Farley. “There’s simply no one in the world better able than Peter Stern to build this strategically vital part of our business.”
“I love creating new services businesses and this is the perfect chance to do just that,” explained Stern. “The auto industry is undergoing an unprecedented transformation, from gas engines to electric vehicles and from human to autonomous driving.
“At the same time, the basis for differentiation is shifting from the vehicles alone to the integration of hardware, software and services. I’ll be in the middle of something truly historic and am particularly fortunate to do that at Ford, which has been democratizing automotive technology for 120 years and counting.”