New General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson’s long-awaited reshuffle of the management deck has resulted in the departure of six executives including one time GM Europe sales and marketing chief Jonathan Browning, and the heads of the automaker’s Latin America, Africa and Middle East unit and GM-Daewoo.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Henderson announced GM would replace its automotive strategy and product boards with a single, smaller executive committee he’ll head.
The inner circle will include the recently ‘unretired’ product guru Bob Lutz, now in charge of marketing and communications, global product development chief Tom Stephens; international operations head Nick Reilly, CFO Ray Young, manufacturing and labour head Tim Lee, corporate planning and alliances chief (and key Opel stake sale negotiator) John Smith, US sales boss Mark LaNeve and purchasing and supply leader Bob Socia.
Former manufacturing and labour head Gary Cowger will retire at the end of the year and, until then, will be responsible for the integration of Delphi facilities being acquired by GM and for the launch of a new battery assembly facility.
Troy Clarke, current head of GM North America, will retire on 1 October and Maureen Kempston Darkes, in charge of GM Latin America, Africa and Middle-East, will also retire at the end of the year. Her ‘LAAM’ region will then be run by GM International Operations in Shanghai.
Another notable retirement is GM Daewoo head Michael Grimaldi who follows Clarke out the door on 1 October.
Reflecting the axing or proposed sale of the Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer brands, Brent Dewar will move from heading GM Europe’s sales, marketing, and aftersales to run Chevrolet globally.
Susan Docherty will run Buick-GMC and Bryan Nesbitt takes over Cadillac.
Browning, currently head of GM’s global sales, service and marketing is also leaving on 1 October but will “pursue other interests” rather than retiring, according to the automaker. He won’t be replaced and his staff will be merged into other GM operations.
“With these announcements, most of the new GM leadership team is in place,” Henderson, who is presiding over a 35% cull of executives, said.
“We expect to have the final round of announcements next week.
Final members of the new GM board were also confirmed and include private equity expert David Bonderman, co-founder of TPG, described as one of the most influential figures in the US private equity industry.
His experience fixing struggling businesses includes helping to pull Continental Airlines out of bankruptcy in the 1990s and turning it around.
