Big break: Leading the go-to-market strategy for the launch of the Ford F-150 Lightning

From a young age, Jasen Turnbull got a sneak peek at some of the auto industry’s newest products. 

His father worked in sales and marketing for Ford Motor Co. and often brought home newly launched vehicles for test drives. When he visited his grandfather, a designer at Chrysler, he’d usually see concept sketches or early-stage models. 

That inspired Turnbull to continue the family tradition and have a say in discovering the industry’s next big hit. 

“From an early time, I knew I loved cars,” he said. “It was always something I wanted to do as a career.”

After graduating from Clemson University in 2011, the metro Detroit native joined Ford in Arizona, first as a sales zone manager, then as a service zone manager. Four years later, he relocated to Michigan as an advanced product marketing manager on the truck team, diving into customer research to guide development of F-Series pickups. 

“I love analyzing trends and insights and turning them into decisions to help shape product,” he said. 

By 2018, Turnbull was getting feedback that customers would be open to electrification. That’s when he heard of a group Ford was forming in the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit, called Team Edison, to study whether it should electrify the company’s flagship F-150. 

“I basically inserted myself into the room and started working with them,” he said. “I had insights and a strategy laid out. I said, ‘I’ve been working on this, I need to at least lend my value.’ We drove to Corktown and said, ‘Here’s the research.’ ”

Turnbull was named the program’s marketing manager, and over the next three and a half years, he lived and breathed the F-150 Lightning. When the time came to launch it, he developed an approach to convert reservations to orders in waves. 

The thinking was that if only a certain number of the nearly 200,000 reservation holders could place firm orders at one time, Ford could better manage production and avoid subjecting buyers to months or possibly years of uncertainty. 

“We focused on optimizing the customer experience from order to delivery,” Turnbull said. “When someone places an order, we want to tell them as best as possible an ETA when they’ll get their vehicle.”

Although Ford remains overwhelmed by demand, the Lightning’s launch has gone smoother than those of other recent new products.

Turnbull is still immersed in the world of the Lightning but says he hopes to continue digging into trends and researching customers in the future. 

“I’m really excited for the next opportunity to find the next game-changing product for the industry,” he said.

— Michael Martinez