Goodyear CEO Mark Stewart pursues 'Goodyear Forward' turnaround amid financial headwinds

DETROIT — Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. CEO Mark Stewart sits in the vehicle bay of a tire shop where the company is launching a new retail experience for customers.

There's a freshly painted black facade on the revamped Detroit store, with the words "Motor City" added in white flanking Goodyear's winged foot logo. It's been dressed up for a private event in connection to a nearby annual car festival called the Woodward Dream Cruise.

But despite the stylish touches, it's still a tire shop. The smell of rubber and oil remains in the air and the sound of workers changing tires combines with music from a DJ inside the shop's waiting room.

The scene is symbolic of Stewart's ongoing "Goodyear Forward" turnaround plan. He's trying to make tires — a historically dirty business — more attractive for investors and friendlier for consumers.

"We have made so much progress, and when you think about it from the standpoint of the Goodyear Forward program, it was really to get our feet back on the ground towards being the iconic company that we always were," Stewart, wearing an unbuttoned navy blue Goodyear technician shirt, told CNBC during an interview at the shop.

But while Goodyear is well known for burning rubber, it's also burning cash as it restructures and tries to refinance and pay down years of debt.

The company's capital expenditures were roughly $2 billion combined in 2024 and 2025, with expectations of $725 million this year. Its debt remained at more than $7 billion at the end of the second quarter.

Goodyear's net loss was $453 million through the first half of the year, while its operating income was $131 million, or a 1.6% margin.

Under the turnaround plan, Stewart wanted Goodyear to reach a 10% operating margin by the end of last year. Instead, that came in at 8.5% in the fourth quarter, and it's still an outstanding goal for the company to hit that mark.

"We're working on getting to that double-digit margin, and we're working on meaningfully generating cash flow," Stewart said. "It's been a long time since Goodyear's done that. That we absolutely must do."

The automotive veteran was named CEO of Goodyear after leaving Chrysler parent Stellantis in January 2024. Since then, shares of the company have fallen more than 50% despite Goodyear achieving many of the milestones he's set out to accomplish with the plan.

Stewart doesn't make excuses for not hitting the targets even though Goodyear's business, like many, has been impacted by tariffs, inflated raw material costs and the expansion of cheaper Chinese products.

"We still have a lot of geopolitical headwinds that we're working through … a lot of headwinds with raw material indexes and a bit of the hangover from the tariff environment," he said, adding that overseas manufacturers continue to have cost advantages compared to Goodyear.

Goodyear's raw material costs are expected to be roughly flat year-over-year, but a $200 million headwind during the second half, largely due to higher commodity costs associated with the conflict in the Middle East, according to the company and Wall Street analysts.

"Goodyear has faced many big challenges over the past few years, ranging from slower consumer (and commercial) demand, to rising raw material costs, to higher capital expenditures (capex), to low-priced Asian imports (into the U.S.), and, more recently, to trade and tariff legislation. It hasn't been easy for Goodyear," Argus analyst Bill Selesky said in an Aug. 17 investor note.

Goodyear is rated a hold with a price target of $7.60, according to average analyst ratings compiled by FactSet. Shares of the company closed Friday at $6.35, down 27% this year.

The Goodyear Forward turnaround strategy was initially expected to be a two-year plan that went through last year, but the CEO has continued it as he and his executive team map out what's next for the 128-year-old Akron, Ohio-based company.

"At the right time, we will announce that," Stewart said. "We continue to press ahead to the next challenges and make sure we get the business in the right space."

The Goodyear Forward plan had already been released when Stewart was named as incoming CEO, but he has been able to make it his own, including by adding cuts and cost savings. The turnaround plan has cut roughly $1.5 billion in annualized costs from the business, according to the company.

Part of the plan under Stewart has been to move Goodyear more into the premium tire segment, including by selling off units such as its Dunlop brand. It also plans to launch more than 1,600 new products this year, most of which are in higher-end segments with bigger margins.

The product restructuring comes as non-U.S. brands, especially Chinese ones such as Sumitomo and Yokohama, have been expanding globally with cheaper products in lower-end segments, according to Stewart.

Similar to how Chinese automakers have grown outside their own country, tire manufacturers have also been turning to more exports, including the U.S.

"We are not going to compete against a $6 or $10 converted tire. That's not who we are as Goodyear," Stewart said, referring to the manufacturing cost required to convert raw materials into a finished tire.

Despite the challenges globally, Goodyear's Asia-Pacific region is a bright spot for the company. Its segment operating income for the second quarter was $63 million, with an operating margin of 12.7%.

Its U.S. operations have been a main drag on the company's financials. Stewart is trying to turn that around as consumer demand slows.

The company said its cash burn is expected to continue into 2027 but moderate as the announced closure next year of a plant in Fayetteville, North Carolina, is expected to improve its Americas segment operating income by $270 million annually.

"We had to take a very difficult decision, but a necessary one to announce the closure of our Fayetteville, North Carolina facility. We absolutely didn't take that lightly, but we just didn't have a pathway to be competitive out of that facility," Stewart said.

The Goodyear Forward plan was prompted by activist investor Elliott Investment Management revealing a stake in the company in 2023. A spokesperson for Elliott, which supported three new Goodyear board members, declined to comment on the company or the firm's current ownership status.

Part of the Goodyear Forward strategy is to increase focus on marketing and advertising to connect with customers to reinforce the brand.

A large part of that — both physically and financially — comes from the company's iconic Goodyear blimps that have flown as giant advertisements for more than a century.

"The blimp team and the marketing team have really embraced it. So we do a lot of activation around the blimp to literally sell tires," Stewart said. "When the blimp media marketing has their hat on, it's always in context of 'How do we tie this to the tires?'"

Stewart said Goodyear has leaned into the promotion, using social media platforms to tout its aircraft — and their connection to tires — and launching "buy to fly" campaigns in which tire retailers and consumers can win flights aboard its blimps.

The company was showing off its revamped store alongside a Detroit event that attracts hundreds of thousands of car enthusiasts along a 16-mile stretch annually. To celebrate, and get its advertising in front of tire buyers, it held a rare double-blimp appearance, according to the company. It also featured a collection of smaller "mini blimps."

"We've always made the tires worth bragging about," Stewart said. "We're just reminding people now, and that ties into our marketing and advertising as well."