About the Show
Lee Iacocca, the quintessential brash CEO of the 1980s, revamped the American automotive industry. The son of an Italian immigrant who owned a hot dog stand in Pennsylvania, Iacocca was instilled with his family’s ethic of hard work. He secured a coveted spot as a student engineer at the Ford Motor Company, but sales was his passion and propelled his career to the presidency of the company. A visionary who had a hand in every aspect of the business, Iacocca often clashed with Henry Ford II and was eventually fired. But Ford’s loss was Chrysler’s gain. Iacocca engineered a transformation that brought Chrysler from the brink of bankruptcy to the most envied of the Big Three automakers. He was so respected as an executive that his 1984 autobiography became a best seller. Profits from the book went to diabetes research, a cause Iacocca has worked tirelessly for after losing his first wife to the disease in 1983.
