CEO Mary Barra is Now Also GM’s Chairman
Promotion indicates confidence in management and the company.
General Motors' twelve-member board of directors has unanimously elected CEO Mary Barra the company's first-ever female chairman, with her new dual titles indicating the growing confidence in upper management as well as the automaker's future. Barra became GM's CEO in January 2014, following the retirement of Dan Akerson, the federal government-appointed board member.
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Akerson hand-picked Barra to replace him as CEO, but GM's chairman from January 2014 to now has been retired Cummins CEO and Chairman Theodore Solso, who remains with the company as Lead Independent Director of the board.
Barra has been with GM for 35 years, having served high-ranking posts in manufacturing engineering, human resources and global product development. Before she was named CEO, Barra was GM's executive vice president for global product development, purchasing and supply chain.
First Akerson's, and now Barra's tenure at the top represents a stabilization of the new General Motors that emerged out of a federal government-led bailout and bankruptcy in July 2009. GM's previous CEO and chairman, Rick Wagoner, did not want to take the automaker through bankruptcy and thus was replaced as CEO in March 2009 by GM President Fritz Henderson. Both GM and the federal government refused to give Henderson the additional title of chairman of the board. After the bankruptcy, the government named Akerson, a former Nextel executive, to the board.
Henderson, who had expressed his willingness to take GM through a Section 363, Chapter 11, bankruptcy, was fired in December 2009, after just nine months in the position. Ed Whitacre, the new chairman of the board, became interim CEO, serving until Akerson replaced him in September 2010. Akerson was named chairman the following January.
GM has kept a separate CEO and chairman for much of its history. From 1908 to 1923, when Alfred P. Sloan was named its first CEO, GM had only a chairman in the leadership position. Sloan did not hold both titles until 1937. Six men held both titles between 1958 and 1992, and John F. Smith was both chairman and CEO from 1996 to 2000.
Barra is GM's first "chairwoman," though the company's press release gives her the title "chairman."