Harley-Davidson nominates replacement for empty board seat
Harley-Davidson announced its preferred candidate to replace the open board seat left empty by Jared Dourdeville, following his April 5 resignation.
Dourdeville, a partner at New York-based H Partners Management, has been an independent board director at Harley-Davidson since 2022, until he abruptly resigned and listing concerns about the future of the company.
As reported by Ashley Smart of Biz Times in Milwaukee, Dourdeville’s firm, H Partners, owes a 9.1% stake in Harley, and is urging company shareholders to not re-elect board members Sara Levinson and Tom Linebarger, as well as CEO Jochen Zeitz, who announced he is retiring later this year.
Harley’s board, on the other hand, wrote in an SEC filing that it has nominated Lorri Flees, president and CEO of Valvoline, to fill Dourdeville’s seat.
“The board nominated Ms. Lori Flees, who has not previously served on the board, for election as a director as part of the board’s commitment to refreshment that ensures a balance between leveraging institutional knowledge and bringing fresh perspectives to board discussions,” according to an April 21 SEC filing from Harley. “Ms. Flees was recommended by a third-party executive search, corporate culture, and leadership consultant retained by the board’s Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee to identify new director candidates.”
In the proxy statement, Harley writes, in big bold letters, that it strongly urges shareholders to vote for all the company’s directors, and to use their white proxy cards to vote, rather than using a blue proxy card being sent by H Partners.
“We believe our director nominees’ collective backgrounds and skillsets provide the appropriate expertise to oversee the completion of the final stage of our Hardwire strategic plan and to continue the ongoing search process for a new chief executive officer of the company,” the company says.
18 million dollars, for a ceo!? No WONDER they’re out of touch with the core of their company. They should ALL be fired, and a new board of NON executives should be voted in. The ONLY executive I’d be in favor of would be Elon Musk. I’d LOVE to see mental midgets try and damage Harleys outside biker bars.
It’s sad that we’re never starting to find Ace O2 pay a decent wage too. That doesn’t need millions and billions of dollars to screw all the American people that buy their bikes. I will never, ever buy a T-shirt. Let alone ever a motorcycle from this disgraceful company again
Harley-Davidson will have Flees?