Since Henry Clay Ford Jr. became CEO of Ford (NYSE: F) in 2001, billions of dollars in shareholder value have evaporated in the face of huge losses.

To his, and the compensation committee's credit, Mr. Ford agreed on May 11th of 2005, to "forego any new compensation (including salary, bonus, or other awards) until such time as the Committee and Mr. Ford determine that the Company's Automotive sector has achieved sustainable profitability."

Ford then lost $12 billion in 2006 alone, and then another $2.6 billion in 2007. Now, the company is backtracking on its decision not to pay Mr. Ford until the company had achieved "sustainable profitability." According to a new agreement between the two parties filed as an exhibit to the latest 10-K, the company has "now agreed that Mr. Ford would continue to forego new compensation (including salary, bonus or other awards) until such time as the Committee determines that the Company's global Automotive sector has achieved full-year profitability, excluding special items. It was further agreed that the compensation Mr. Ford would have received begining in 2008 and future years but for the agreement to forego new compensation will be earned and paid when the Committee determines that the Company's global Automotive sector has achieved full-year profitability, excluding special items."

We recently took a look at the Best & Worst of 2007 in sixteen categories and asked you to vote for your favorites, as well as sharing the reasons for your picks and any other contenders we may have overlooked. And voting is off to a strong start, with more than 100,000 votes in each category so far.

Some categories have shaped up to be close races. Chuck Prince, Bill Ford, and Bob Nardelli each have a little less than a third of the vote for Best CEO Departure of the Year. Britney Spears and Michael Vick are neck and neck as the Celebrity Most Likely to Lose It All, while Lindsey Lohan's relatively low profile recently has garnered her just 6 percent of that vote. In the Most Shameless Attempt at Cashing in on '15 Minutes', Sanjaya Malakar has a slim lead over Howard K. Stern/Larry Birkhead, but poor Chris "Leave Britney Alone!" Crocker has gotten no respect with a mere 6 percent of the vote. McDonald's has a small lead as the Hottest Chain Restaurant, thought Chipotle isn't far behind with more than a quarter of the vote. And while the iPhone has the lead now as the Hottest Gadget of the Year, it and the Nintendo Wii have been trading places as the front runner.

This post was part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst of 2007. Voting has now closed and, in a close race, readers have chosen Chuck Prince as the best CEO departure of the year. Let us know in the comments if you are pleased with this result.

When looking back at 2007, there were some larger-than-life CEO departures that semi-rocked the business world and brought some investors to the realization of over-the-top compensation yet again. Let's look at a few and then you can decide the winner. Sound good?

First up comes Bill Ford, Jr., from the automotive industry. Under Ford's leadership, Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) lost its way in terms of correctly forecasting what kind of vehicles customers actually wanted, in addition to becoming horribly leveraged. As soon as gas prices began shooting up, Ford Motor started spiraling down. Long-time Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) executive Alan Mulally was brought in to replace Ford as the automaker's CEO just in the nick of time. Ford Motor's expected profitability date with Ford now gone: 2009.

How about Bob Nardelli, formerly CEO of Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD)? Nardelli made global headlines by making tens of millions while leading Home Depot shares to the basement and apparently making all kinds of bad decisions that finally led to his ouster this year. On top of that, his severance package made a Brad Pitt paycheck seem like pennies, and Home Depot shareholders paid for it. Did Home Depot stakeholders get a voice in this corporate travesty? A small one, perhaps.

Though the United Autoworkers Union's threat to strike Chrysler LLC tomorrow got the headlines today, the union's biggest challenge ahead lies with Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F).

As Daniel Howes of the Detroit News points out, Ford is hoping to get a better deal than the agreement the UAW recently reached with General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) because of the automaker's "more dire financial circumstances." UAW head Ron Gettelfinger has spent most of his career representing Ford workers and is close with Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr., with whom he's been speaking with almost daily for the past month, according to Howes.

Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally is well-regarded on Wall Street but he certainly has his work cut out for him. Earlier this year, the Dearborn, Mich. automaker unveiled a major restructuring which included the elimination of 25,000 to 30,000 jobs. Pundits including Howes say more job cuts and plant closings are possible. Last year, Ford posted a record deficit of $12.6 billion.

Whether the close ties between Gettelfinger and Bill Ford will help avoid labor trouble remains to be seen. For now, the UAW is focusing its attention on Chrysler.

A Chrysler spokeswoman told the AP that the automaker remained optimistic about a settlement. The timing of the UAW's ultimatum was interesting considering that five U.S. Chrysler plants were going to be shut down anyway for about two weeks starting today because of lower demand for Chrysler products.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) actually made money in the second quarter, shocking Wall Street which had expected a loss. The automaker also confirmed media reports that may sell its Jaguar and Land Rover businesses.

The company made $750 million, or 31 cents per share, compared with a loss of $317 million, or 17 cents, a year earlier, its first profitable quarter in more than two years. Revenue rose 6% to $44.2 million. Wall Street had expected Ford to lose 35 cents on revenue of $37.5 billion. Click here for the earnings release, here for the Wall Street Journal story, and here for the Bloomberg News story.

Will Ford soon sell the Aston Martin division as some investors and analysts have been clamoring for the past several years now? Pressure to sell off low-performing divisions has increased in recent quarters as CEO Bill Ford stepped down and former Boeing exec Alan Mulally came aboard to turn things around. He had the big job of getting Ford back into profit-making mode after the automaker posted some of the most disastrous results in its history in recent times.

Rumors circulating around this week's Geneva Auto Show say that Aston Martin may be sold by tomorrow (Friday). In fact, a "senior course" said that "It's a done deal. All that remains is to cross the t's and dot the i's." The new owner of the luxury car icon would most likely be a consortium of business interests from America and the Middle East, as opposed to an existing global automaker according to rumored reports.

The price Ford has apparently already settled on is rumored to be only half of what it was asking just six months ago, which may make the Aston Martin division somewhat of a bargain to the buyer. Is it a sign of an incredibly wasteful business decision that Ford lowered the asking price so drastically in recent times? Maybe it should have just sold the brand in a garage sale for a nickel or something.

With Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn possibly becoming impatient with GM after GM CEO Rick Wagoner reported asked Ghosn to pony up billions for a possible GM-Nissan allaince, could Ghosn move over to Ford?

Possibly -- the enigmatic Ghosn, who has been credited with "saving" Nissan, runs that company along with France's Renault. He's a hot property these days because he knows how to get things done and turn floundering businesses around. Nissan's proof of that beyond any doubts.

Why is Ghosn so eager to make an alliance with a struggling U.S. automaker? Don't think it's coming out of nowhere -- an alliance, if structured properly, would be -- above all -- meant to give great returns to Nissan shareholders above all. Otherwise, why strike an alliance at all?

Bill Ford, Jr., the former CEO of Ford Motor, reported contacted Ghosn a year ago to solicit his interest in possibly running the company, but Ghosn declined. However, Ghosn apparently sees quite a bit of locked-up value in the North American market, some of which he would like to tap into through an alliance. Said Ghosn at the Paris Auto Show, happening this week, "I said from the beginning that the expansion of the alliance in North America makes sense ... there is a lot of value there."

Bill Ford was booted after five years heading up Ford Motor Corporation (NYSE:F). Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE:BMY)ousted CEO Peter Dolan only a few days later; his tenure was also five years. Around the same time, it was announced that PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP) CEO Steven Reinemund was stepping down to be replaced by up-and-comer Indra Nooyi. His time in the boardroom? Also five years. Jack Stahl was ousted as Revlon, Inc. (NYSE:REV) CEO after ... four-and-a-half years last Monday.

I think I see a pattern. If you're not cutting the cheese (and how) after the end of the fourth annual report under your tutelage, well then, it stands to reason you'll be shown the door. Or, ahem, suddenly find yourself needing to "spend more time with your family."

Michael Dell follows that pattern. Recently, he was faced with criticisms for his successor as CEO of Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL), Kevin Rollins. Rollins' time at the helm? A bit more than two years. It's not enough, Dell said, and affirmed his support for his long-time right-hand man. Dell's troubles, he said, were not yet attributable to him.

Sumner Redstone, though, gave Viacom, Inc. (NYSE:VIA) CEO Tom Freston only eight months. In a move that affirmed Redstone's "eccentricity" (which in this context is a nice way of saying "impetuous" or "hot-tempered"), Mssr. Redstone blamed all his company's troubles on a man who'd only been CEO for less than a year ... hardly enough, you'd think, to evaluate his performance (or for his leadership to have any real impact on the company's stock price).

Is five years enough? Too much? Too little?

Bill Ford, Jr. was at the helm of the company his great-grandfather founded at the turn of the 20th century for five years. In that time the name "Ford" leading the company was not only a matter of pride for probably thousands of employees, but it carried some significance of ownership in the company from a founding relative. When Jacques Nasser was booted Ford stood at a crossroads. Ford vehicles were perceived as unreliable, GM and the recent Daimler Chrysler were beating it to the punch, and Ford looked like a flailing giant.

Bill Ford restored much order and semblance to the American automaker, but even he was unable to completely correct so many problems with production techniques, marketing events, and stoic designs although progress was being made. Five years at the helm, in my opinion, was not enough time to literally try and re-invent the global automaker from one form to another. But Ford had a duty to shareholders who had significant holdings in the company and who wanted gains among other things. Nobody is in the market to lose, correct?

With an outsider now coming in to lead Ford, will the internal Ford population be able to rally around the new leader and start making things happen faster? Ford is already changing with better marketing and designs from what I have seen. Although Ford needs to stay on its toes in the face of Toyota and even Nissan, with Carlos Ghosn being the Nissan leader extraordinaire that he is.

Alan Mullaly, Ford's new CEO, comes from a hefty background at Boeing. Industry-wise that seems like a good fit for an automaker. The question if is he can turn Ford around to a point where it is the first or second name off customer's tongues when a new vehicle is considered. Mullaly has the right attitude when he said this about what Ford will need: "a portfolio of automobiles that is world class and customers really want to have".

Bill Ford, great-grandson of the storied American auto company's founder, is stepping down from his position as CEO of Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) according to AP reports. He'll be replaced by Alan Mulally of Boeing.

It was only this January that Time magazine asked in a cover story, "Can This Man Save the American Auto Industry?" The question mark loomed large over the whole article, and it seems Ford -- Bill, as well as the company he led -- have answered, "no."

It's interesting that even last week, when Coke's Donald Knauss announced he was leaving to head another company, we speculated: could it be Ford? We were wrong in the name of the replacement, but not the sentiment: even though it seemed a little far-fetched, at the time.

Time for a new question. "Can this man save the American auto industry?" What do you think?

[Photo byrdiegyrl]