GM Names Mary T. Barra As Next Chief Executive

General Motors announced on December 10 that Chief Executive Daniel F. Akerson would retire next month and be succeeded by Mary T. Barra, who would become the first woman to lead a major auto company.

The elevation of Barra to the chief executive post is the latest dramatic change at the top of General Motors since its bailout by the federal government in 2009.

GM, the largest US automaker, said that Akerson, 65, would step down as Chief Executive and Chairman on January 15. His planned retirement was hastened, the company said, by his wife’s recent cancer diagnosis.

Barra has worked for GM for 33 years and was most recently the Executive Vice President of Global Product Development. She is considered a critical player in the overhaul of company’s vehicle lineups around the world. Barra joined General Motors in 1980 as a co-op student in the company’s Pontiac division. An electrical engineer by training, she worked in a variety of engineering posts and managed an assembly plant, among other jobs, before being named head of the company’s human resources department in 2009.

After being promoted by Akerson to lead GM.'s global product development in 2011, Barra set out to streamline the company’s historically bureaucratic vehicle development process. She has been an advocate of reducing the number of global vehicle platforms that GM uses around the world, an approach that saves money and reduces complexity among its product lines.

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