GM's Wagoner: Building a Deeper Bench
March 20, 2007

Little should be read into Monday’s announcement of management changes at General Motors. The moves are merely tweaking the new global management structure and taking into account a retirement. We can expect more tweaking and more retirements in the future.

GM announced Monday that Bo Andersson and Jim Queen were promoted to GM group vice presidents, effective April 1. Andersson will continue to lead the Global Purchasing and Supply Chain organization. Queen will remain the leader for Global Engineering. Those moves are part of GM’s efforts to create a global product development structure.

GM also announced Tom Gottschalk, the Law and Public Policy chief and a key adviser to CEO Rick Wagoner, will retire April 1. He is being replaced by a pair of executives who will split the job.

Gottschalk is 64. His retirement was first announced in June, but the company didn't assign a departure date at the time.

By all accounts, it’s hard to say no to Rick Wagoner. He has asked top lieutenants to stay on past retirement age and lured others out of retirement as the former Duke University basketball player builds a deeper management bench.

Wagoner lured Steve Harris out of his comfortable retirement in February last year to be vice president in charge of global communications for the second time. He held the same post from February 1999, to December 31, 2003. Harris, who agreed to do the job for 18 months, has said he just can’t say no to Wagoner when he asks for help.

Likewise for John Middlebrook, vice president of Global Sales, Service and Marketing Operations. Wagoner asked him to stay on beyond his scheduled retirement to oversee the newly established global sales operation. Middlebrook keeps agreeing to another hitch per Wagoner’s request, the latest one having him at GM at least through September. “I keep telling my family when I’m going to retire, and nobody believes me anymore,” Middlebrook told Edmund’s AutoObserver.

And then there’s GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, who at age 73, insists a retirement date is not set.

Still, the question remains who will replace these key players on Wagoner’s team.

Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:59 AM under Analysis , Commentary , GM , News , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | Seed Newsvine