Throughout a career filled with groundbreaking product innovations, Doug Field’s contributions have influenced the experience of anyone who has ever utilized a MacBook Air, operated a Segway, or driven a Tesla Model 3.
However, his latest endeavor stands as his most ambitious undertaking: transforming the Ford vehicle, one of the most emblematic inventions of the last century.
In his role as Ford’s chief officer for electric vehicles (EV), digital strategy, and design, Field is responsible for spearheading the advancement of the company’s electric vehicles while making new software ecosystems pivotal for all Ford models.
To transition Ford Motor Co. into that digital and electric era, Field essentially has to direct a rapidly evolving startup within the historic automaker. “It is extremely challenging, trying to implement ‘startups’ within vast organizations,” he admits.
If anyone has the capability to achieve this, it’s probably Field. From his tenure in MIT’s Leaders for Global Operations (then referred to as “Leaders in Manufacturing”) program, where he focused on organizational dynamics and strategy, Field has been dedicated to establishing the environment conducive for innovation.
“The inherent state of an organization tends to make it increasingly challenging to engage in those activities: to innovate, to have small teams, to act against the norm,” he states. To counteract these tendencies, Field has mastered the craft of assembling diverse, skilled teams and nurturing their growth within large, intricate entities.
“It’s one matter to cultivate a creative environment where large ideas can emerge,” he explains. “It’s quite another to foster an execution-focused setting to produce results. I became fascinated by the question of how to harmonize both aspects in my career.”
Three decades after his initial term as a development engineer at Ford Motor Co., Field now has the opportunity to blend Ford’s manufacturing prowess with the audacious approach that enabled him to rethink Apple’s laptops and design Tesla’s Model 3 sedan. His mission is nothing short of reimagining how vehicles are produced and function, starting from the ground up.
“If it’s solely about creativity or execution, you won’t be able to change the world,” he states. “For significant impact, you require individuals who can alter your trajectory, and you need people to construct it.”
A dedication to design
Since childhood, Field has been captivated by automobiles. “I was definitely interested in cars and transportation more broadly,” he shares. “I viewed vehicles as the intersection of technology, art, and human design — cars symbolized the convergence of all my passions.”
With an artist and musician mother and an engineer father, Field acknowledges his parents’ influence in cultivating his enduring fascination with both the aesthetic and technical aspects of product design. “I believe that’s why I’m drawn to automobiles — the aesthetic component of the product is significant,” he remarks.
After obtaining a mechanical engineering degree from Purdue University, Field joined Ford in 1987. During that time, Detroit’s major automakers excelled in mass vehicle production, but were not particularly organized to promote or reward innovative thought. Field felt constrained by the “overly structured and bureaucratic” operational environment he faced.
Although sometimes frustrating, the experience proved valuable and enlightening. He recognized that he “wanted to engage with agile, technology-oriented enterprises.”
“My enthusiasm for advancing technical problem-solving wasn’t appreciated in the automotive industry” at the time, he reflects. “I understood that I wanted to collaborate with passionate individuals and create something new in an environment that valued talent and innovation, where irreverence was a strength, not a weakness. When I read about Silicon Valley, I admired their discourse.”
During that period, Field took a two-year sabbatical to join MIT’s LGO program, where he enhanced his technical abilities and was introduced to concepts concerning manufacturing processes and team-driven innovation that would benefit him in the future.
“Some of the essential skills I gained there were incredibly significant,” he observes, “within the context of production lines and processes.” He studied systems engineering and employed Monte Carlo simulations to model intricate manufacturing environments. During his internship with aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, he worked on automated design within computer-aided design (CAD) systems, long before such techniques became commonplace.
A vital skill he acquired was the science of probability and statistics, learned under MIT Professor Alvin Drake in his renowned course 6.041/6.431 (Probabilistic Systems Analysis). Field later applied those insights not only to manufacturing processes but also to characterize variability in people’s skills, working styles, and abilities, which was pivotal for cultivating better, more innovative teams. His study of organizational strategy ignited a career-long fascination with “approaches to perceive innovation as an outcome, rather than a random spark of genius.”
“So many elements I was fortunate to encounter at MIT,” Field reflects, “were foundational blocks, crucial pieces of the puzzle that assisted me in navigating challenging situations later on.”
Learning while guiding
After departing Ford in 1993, Field spent three years at Johnson and Johnson Medical focusing on process development. It was there he met Segway inventor Dean Kamen, who was working on a project known as the iBOT, a gyroscopically powered wheelchair capable of ascending stairs.
When Kamen established Segway to develop a new personal mobility device utilizing similar technology, Field became his initial hire. He dedicated nearly ten years as the firm’s chief technology officer.
At Segway, the fusion of Field’s interests in vehicles, technology, innovation, process, and human-centered design occurred.
“In retrospect, working on electric vehicles was an incredible gift,” he remarks. The challenges they addressed foreshadowed those he would encounter later at Tesla and Ford. “Segway was a precursor to a contemporary EV. Entirely software-controlled, equipped with higher-voltage batteries, redundant systems, traction control, and brushless DC motors — it was essentially a miniature Tesla in 2000.”
In his time at Segway, Field assembled an “extraordinary” group of engineers and designers who shared his commitment to pushing boundaries. “Segway was the first place where I could personally select every individual I collaborated with, establish the culture, and define the mission.”
As he embraced this leadership position, he also became deeply engaged with resolving another enigma: “How do you value individuals who don’t conform?”
“A critical element of Silicon Valley’s essence is the enthusiasm for embracing talent over the conventional metrics organizations use to evaluate individuals,” he notes. “If you aspire to innovate, you must learn to manage neurodiversity and a varied array of personalities that differ from those found in large corporations.”
Field continues to keep a basic housing unit of a Segway in his office, serving as a reminder of what such teams — alongside meticulous attention to detail — can accomplish.
Prior to his tenure at Apple in 2008, he showcased that component, with its sleek lines and every minor part meticulously arranged in a cohesive package to his prospective colleagues. “Their response was, ‘Alright, you’re one of us,’” he recollects.
He quickly ascended to the role of vice president of hardware development for all Mac computers, guiding the teams responsible for the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, and ultimately overseeing over 2,000 employees. “The focus on producing solutions that are genuinely simple and elegantly designed, viewing the product as an integrated entity, was what drew me to Apple.”
The challenge of giving the MacBook Air its characteristic slim and lightweight design is one illustration.
“The MacBook Air was the inaugural high-volume consumer electronics product developed out
“of a CNC-machined casing,” states Field. He collaborated with industrial design and technology teams to create a method to construct the laptop from a single solid block of aluminum, eliminating two-thirds of the components typically found in the iMac. “We had parts removed so that every individual screw and electronic element was embedded in it in a cohesive manner. That’s how we achieved a product that is so compact and slim.”
“When I had my interview with Jony Ive” — Apple’s iconic chief design officer — “he mentioned that your capacity to zoom out and zoom in was the most crucial capability as a leader at Apple.” This involved zooming out to consider “the overall philosophy of the product and its potential impact on the world,” as well as zooming back in to concentrate on the physical form of the laptop itself and the experience it offers to users.
“That continuous focus on detail, enthusiasm for the product, design along with technology directly influenced my work at Tesla,” he explains. When Field joined Tesla in 2013, he was attracted to how the audacious startup transformed the automotive manufacturing approach. “Tesla was incorporating digital technology into vehicles in a way no one else was. They declared, ‘We’re not just a car company based in Silicon Valley; we’re a Silicon Valley company that happens to produce cars.’”
Field assembled and supervised the team responsible for creating the Model 3 sedan, Tesla’s most affordable offering, aimed at having broad market appeal.
This experience only reinforced the significance, and influence, of fluctuating between zooming in and out as a designer — in a manner that encompasses the broader human resources context.
“It’s essential to have a wide understanding of your goals and assist team members in the organization to grasp what it signifies for them,” he states. “You must navigate across and comprehend operations enough to connect all of those (elements) together — while maintaining excellence and focus on something very, very specific. That’s T-shaped leadership.”
He attributes his time at LGO to laying the groundwork for the “T-shaped leadership” he embraces.
“An education like the one I received at MIT enabled me to continue advancing that ‘T’, concentrating intensely, absorbing a wealth of knowledge, teaching as much as I could, and once something matures, retreating and settling into other domains where the organization needs to evolve or where there’s a challenge.”
The strength of combining scale with a “startup mentality”
In 2018, Field rejoined Apple as a vice president for special projects. “I departed Tesla after Model 3 and Y began to increase production, as there were others better suited than me to manage high-volume manufacturing,” he explains. “I returned to Apple with the hope that what Tesla had learned would inspire Apple to explore a new market.”
That market was his early fascination: automobiles. Field quietly spearheaded a project to create an electric vehicle at Apple for three years.
Then Ford CEO Jim Farley reached out. He convinced Field to return to Ford in late 2021, partially by illustrating how much had transformed since his previous tenure with the automaker.
“Two points were crystal clear,” Field says. “One was humility. ‘Our success is not guaranteed.’” That mindset contrasted sharply with Field’s early experiences in Detroit, where he met executives resistant to change. “The second point was urgency. Jim and Bill Ford communicated the same message to me: ‘We have four or five years to fundamentally reshape this company.’”
“I replied, ‘Alright, if the leadership truly believes this, then the auto industry might just be prepared for what I aspire to contribute.’”
Thus far, Field is invigorated and optimistic about the desire for transformation he has encountered during his current tenure at Ford.
“If we can merge what Ford excels at with what a Tesla or Rivian excels at, we have something formidable,” declares Field. “Skunk works have become one of the essential strategies in my career,” he mentions, referring to an industry term that describes a project pursued by a small, independent team within a larger organization.
Ford has been creating a new, cost-effective, software-driven EV platform — managing all of the vehicle’s sensors and components from a central digital operating system — with a “skunk works” team for the past two years. The company plans to manufacture new sedans, SUVs, and compact pickups based on this new platform.
With other traditional automakers like Volvo accelerating towards an electric future and intense competition from EV leaders Tesla and Rivian, Field and his team face significant challenges.
“I’ve been fortunate to repeatedly feel that what I’m doing now — it will warrant a book being written about it,” states Field. “This is a significant moment, for Ford, the U.S. automotive sector, and indeed for American industry as a whole.”