On January 1, 1999, Jac Nasser took over the CEO job from Alex Trotman. Nasser had been Trotman’s second in command throughout the Ford 2000 rollout and had a long-standing reputation as tough-minded cost cutter and a capable leader. Even before taking the helm, he had begun to focus Ford senior management on shareholder value. In the period 1995-1999 Ford had seen companies with fewer physical assets and much lower revenues and profits achieve market capitalization well in excess of Ford’s. Corporate staff members began to study models such as Cisco and Dell to try to understand whether Ford could produce shareholder value in the ways these newer companies had.