Higgins, Damon and Thompson Benefit in Bridgestone Reorganization

Aug. 23, 2019

TJ Higgins and Scott Damon have been named group presidents at Bridgestone Americas Inc. as part of a shift in leadership structure being promoted by Bridgestone Corp.

The parent company recently made changes to the responsibilities of its executive and corporate officers in order to "help further define and streamline global roles and responsibilities while providing focus for the company’s growth agenda."

Gordon Knapp, CEO and president of Bridgestone Americas and vice chairmain, executive vice president and executive officer of Bridgestone Corp., says the world and the industries served by Bridgetone are rapidly transforming.

"These changes and new structure are strategic, and our ability to develop leaders into global roles across the Bridgestone portfolio is a competitive advantage and allows us to be more agile. Moving forward, we will continue to adapt our management structure to best meet the market challenges of today and prepare for the opportunities of tomorrow.”

In the new structure, sales of all tire-led businesses across the Americas region will be aligned under Higgins, who has been named group president of Americas Tire Business for Bridgestone Americas. That includes the company’s large integrated consumer and commercial tire businesses.

Higgins joined Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations LLC (BATO) as president of the Consumer Integrated Tire Division in the U.S. and Canada in 2014.

Damon has been named group president of operations for Bridgestone Americas. The company says this new role was designed "to create greater focus on the company’s end-to-end supply chain capabilities, and includes some of the previous responsibilities of the chief operating officer role, which has been redefined."

Damon will be responsible for the company’s operational functions, including information technology; procurement and strategic sourcing; logistics and supply chain; and manufacturing. Damon previously served as president of the commercial group in the U.S. and Canada for BATO.

The company also created a new senior leadership role "fully dedicated to managing the significant portfolio of digital transformation investments in infrastructure and growth platforms," the largest in the company’s history. Bill Thompson will fill this role as executive vice president of business transformation for Bridgestone Americas. Thompson previously served as COO of Bridgestone Americas from 2016-2019. He has spent more than 23 years with the company.

"The overall shift in structure reflects a holistic design that better aligns to match other regional Bridgestone business units and creates capacity for global talent development," says Knapp.

The following changes in Bridgestone Executive Officers and Corporate Officers membership will help further define and streamline global roles and responsibilities while providing focus for the company’s growth agenda. They include:

* expanding the Global Head Office (GHO) with new roles designed to strengthen, integrate and execute significant global strategies across SBUs and the enterprise portfolio.

* creating a new strategic business unit -- "BSJP" -- that reorganizes the tire business and Diversified Business for Japan. This new structure creates "an analogous management structure in Japan that matches the company’s other regions and facilitates a more customer-centric operating model that allows for the acceleration of business transformation."

* unlocking the full potential of the company’s global solutions businesses and enhancing its Tire and Diversified Products as a Solution (Bridgestone T&DPaaS) strategy "by creating dedicated focus on the most advanced solutions businesses in the group."

These changes include membership changes to the global executive committee (G-EXCO) as well as abbreviation of the global officer title (G-chief).

To find out all the changing positions and responsiblities of both the executive and corporate officers, which will be effective Sept. 16, 2019, click here.