GM product czar Mary Barra with the Chevrolet Volt.
She has already broken the glass ceiling as General Motors’ first female director of global product development – but could Mary Barra be on her way to become the giant automaker’s first woman CEO?
Based on comments made by the man who currently holds that title it’s a very real possibility that the 50-year-old Barra could success GM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson in the next few years.
“I wouldn’t be surprised” to see Barra get the nod, Akerson, who has himself been in the job for less than two years, told a Wall Street Journal economic conference. But he cautioned that choosing the next GM chief executive is “the board’s job, not mine,” adding that “I think there are a number of good candidates” who might vie for the position.
One of those is now running GM’s critical North American subsidiary, the 48-year-old Mark Reuss. Another potential candidate is Steve Girsky, the 50-year-old former Wall Street automotive analyst who joined GM following its 2009 bankruptcy and is now its Vice Chairman.
And the maker could reach outside, again, as it did when it hired Ed Whitacre, the former head of AT&T signing on first as board chairman and then taking over as CEO following the unexpected ouster of GM veteran Fritz Henderson. Whitacre lasted less than a year in the chief executive role before retiring and handing the crown to Akerson, himself a telecomm industry veteran and former Navy officer.
In his comments to the Palm Beach conference, Akerson focused on the changing make-up at GM. The auto industry has traditionally been as macho a business as it gets. The few women who made it to senior posts in the past were largely confined to “softer” jobs, such as human resources. But that is changing, Akerson emphasized.
He noted that women now make up nearly a quarter of the company’s top 50 executives and hold four of 12 seats on GM’s board. Europe is now run by a woman and women manage several key assembly plants, including the Detroit factory that produces the high-profile Chevrolet Volt.
“Twenty percent of our technical staff are women,” Akerson, 63, said, adding that, “We seek women with engineering degrees.”
But Barra is the first to make it to the top of a product development empire that spends $15 billion annually on new vehicles ranging from the Volt to several small cars that will be sold under the Baojun badge in China.
Her previous post was exactly the sort of soft job women have traditionally been sidelined into, Barra heading Global Human Resources for two years, starting in July 2009. But she was brought back into the engineering fold to replace Tom Stephens, a GM Vice Chairman who briefly moved into the maker’s top spot overseeing advanced technology. Stephens retired earlier this year.
Born on Christmas Eve 1961, the mother of two has been a GM lifer, beginning her career at the old General Motors Institute – now Kettering University – in 1980. She earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. She later received a GM Fellowship to go to the Stanford Graduate School of Business, earning an MBA.
She has followed the traditional fast track for an engineer, her various corporate assignments including a stint directing Competitive Engineering Operations and another as manager of the Detroit Hamtramck plant now producing the Chevy Volt.
It’s been a traditional policy in Detroit to move fast-track managers every couple years, so it’s also common for an executive to get credit – or blame – for the work done previously. Barra is clearly benefitting from a slew of new and well-received products, such as the Buick LaCrosse and Chevrolet Sonic. But in her latest role she will have to prove herself by continuing the maker’s product momentum. In particular, GM needs to continue improving the quality of new vehicles.
Complicating matters, Barra is also serving on the board of GM’s struggling European subsidiary, Opel. She has her challenges cut out and how she fares could determine whether Barra eventually gets to fill Akerson’s shoes.