Jon M. Huntsman Jr. was made Ford’s vice chair, Policy, effective May 1, 2021. He serves as advisor to Jim Farley, Ford’s president and CEO, and Executive Chair Bill Ford on strategic policy choices.

Prior to joining Ford in that role, Huntsman was re-elected to the Ford board of directors in October 2020 after previously serving as a director from 2012 to 2017.  He is a member of the board’s sustainability and innovation committee.

Huntsman stepped down from his first tenure as a Ford director to become U.S. ambassador to Russia under President Donald J. Trump, a position in which he served for two years.  He was U.S. ambassador to China from 2009 to 2011 in President Barack Obama’s administration and ambassador to Singapore in the early 1990s under Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.

Huntsman’s multiple federal trade assignments culminated in two years as deputy U.S. trade representative for President George W. Bush.  Collectively, he has negotiated or brokered dozens of trade and investment agreements for the United States in Asia Pacific and Africa.  His public career began as a White House staff assistant to President Ronald Reagan and included an appointment as deputy assistant secretary of commerce for Asia.  In addition to his extensive federal roles, Huntsman was twice elected governor of the U.S. state of Utah.

Prior to entering public service, Huntsman was an executive of Huntsman Corporation.  He has been chairman of both the Huntsman Cancer Foundation and the Atlantic Council of the United States; a founding director of the Pacific Council on International Policy; a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution; and a trustee of both the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Reagan Presidential Foundation.  Huntsman is also a member of the board of directors of Chevron.

Huntsman is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.