Boerio: Not going to D.C.
It was always going to be a long shot for Bibiana Boerio. The former Jaguar chief and Ford Motor Credit CFO ran as a Democrat in a congressional district in western Pennsylvania that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in 2016.
Boerio, 64, got philosophical on social media after losing to Republican Guy Reschenthaler, 58 percent to 42 percent: “We knew it was going to be tough. If it was easy, a lot of others would have chosen to run in this race.”
She’d handled tough jobs before, such as being managing director of Jaguar in Browns Lane, England, from 2004 to 2007 — not exactly the brand’s heyday. After the native Pennsylvanian was picked for the job, one British newspaper referred to her as a “strange choice.” She oversaw the launch of the all-aluminum Jaguar XK in 2005 and the XF sedan in 2007.
Boerio was Jaguar’s finance director between 1995 and 2000 and then moved to Ford Motor Credit in Dearborn, Mich., as head of finance. She was later chief of finance and strategy at Ford International Operations.
She got the political bug after retiring from Ford in 2007. From 2008 to 2010, Boerio was chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak.
Notably, Boerio may have been the last executive recruited by a Ford Whiz Kid. Boerio was hired in 1976 out of the University of Pittsburgh business school by the longtime (and legendary) Ford finance chief J. Edward Lundy, one of the original Whiz Kids brought in by Henry Ford II in 1945 to help save the company.
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