General Motors has named product development chief Mary Barra to succeed Dan Akerson as the first female CEO in the global automotive industry, the automaker said today in a press release.
Mary Barra, 51, executive vice president, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, was elected by the Board of Directors to become the next CEO of the company.
Akerson, 65, pulled ahead his succession plan by several months after his wife was recently diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer.
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He will step down as chairman and CEO on Jan. 15, 2014.
Barra has risen through a series of manufacturing, engineering, and senior staff positions over her 33 years at GM. Her career has included stints as vice president of global manufacturing engineering, head of GM’s Detroit Hamtramck Assembly plant and executive director of competitive operations engineering.
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“With an amazing portfolio of cars and trucks and the strongest financial performance in our recent history, this is an exciting time at today’s GM,” Barra said in a statement. “I’m honored to lead the best team in the business and to keep our momentum at full speed.”
As the first female CEO of a global automaker, “Barra joins Ginni Rometty at IBM Corp., Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo Inc., Marissa Mayer at Yahoo! Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Meg Whitman and Ursula Burns of Xerox Corp. as women who have risen to run major U.S. corporations,” Automotive News said.
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