Kathleen Ligocki

Kathleen Ligocki didn’t leave her energy and enthusiasm behind when she graduated from Haworth High School with the class of ’74. College was her next stop, and she graduated magna cum laude from Indiana University Kokomo. Her degree was in liberal arts, specifically Chinese history and Renaissance Art, but Kathleen followed her dad into a job at General Motors in Kokomo. Working as a supervisor, she quickly earned a reputation for hard work and attention to detail and was awarded a graduate fellowship to the prestigious M.B.A. program at the Wharton School of Business. She has since received honorary doctoral degrees from IU Kokomo and Central Michigan University.

Kathleen’s resume includes a series of executive positions at Ford Motor Company, where she served as CEO of Ford of Mexico, Vice President of Marketing and Operations and Vice President of the customer service division, among others.  Since leaving Ford in 2003, she has served as CEO of Tower Automotive, GS Motors, Next Autoworks, and Harvest Power, and was the operating partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. She also founded her own consultancy firm, Pine Lake Partners, to assist start-ups and turn-arounds. In 2005, she was named to Automotive News’  100 Leading Women in the Auto Industry.

Ligocki now serves as the CEO of Agility Fuel Systems, a company that provides innovative natural gas fuel systems for heavy duty commercial vehicles. She’s also a director of Lear, a Fortune 200 automotive supplier, and a fiduciary board member of the Indiana University Foundation. She is a member of the IUK Alumni Association Hall of Fame and founded the Kathleen Ligocki International Travel Studies program at IUK in 2008