The head of GM’s Buick and GMC brands resigned after only nine days on the job in a continuing shake-up of the automaker’s executive ranks under chairman and new chief executive Ed Whitacre.
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Michael Richards was named general manager of Buick GMC on 1 December, the same day Whitacre made the surprise announcement that CEO Fritz Henderson had resigned. Richards was the first top executive hired from outside the company after GM’s bankruptcy earlier this year, Reuters noted.
“Michael Richards has elected to leave GM to pursue other opportunities,” General Motors’ new sales and marketing chief, Susan Docherty, said in a statement.
Docherty this week named former GM fleet and commercial operations chief James Campbell general manager of Chevrolet brand, effective immediately, replacing global Chevrolet VP Brent Dewar, who, she said in a statement, had decided to retire on 1 April “to dedicate more time to his family and to pursue personal interests”.
Reuters said Richards, a 27-year Ford veteran, was hired by Bob Lutz whose role as vice chairman of GM was changed in the past week from head of marketing to adviser to Whitacre.
A person familiar with the situation told the news agency Richards opted to leave GM after the sudden change in Lutz’s role. Lutz helped recruit him and introduced him to reporters and analysts at the Los Angeles motor show last week.
Richards reportedly told GM he was leaving on Wednesday, the same day Dewar’s replacement was announced.
Dewar, a 31-year veteran of GM, had headed Chevy since July.
Buick and GMC would be headed by Brian Sweeney on an interim basis, a GM spokesman told Reuters, and the automaker would consider internal and external candidates as a permanent replacement. Sweeney was general sales manager for the brands.
