Kathleen Ligocki Heads Mexican Auto Company Selling Chinese Cars

Kathleen Ligocki Heads Mexican Auto Company Selling Chinese Cars

By Michelle Krebs

MEXICO CITY -- One of the auto industry's highest profile women is now the top executive of a Mexican company that sells - and will eventually build in Mexico -- cars from China's First Auto Works.

Kathleen Ligocki has been named CEO of GS Motors, the automobile division of Grupo Salinas. One of her critical roles will to oversee the continued sales in Mexico and Central America of cars built by China's FAW and the eventual production of those cars in Mexico.

Ligocki "has a clear vision to optimize the development of the FAW cars that we commercialize .... and will allow us to further extend the operations scale, for the benefit of millions of customers who need efficient transportation in the communities where we operate," said Ricardo B. Salinas, chairman of the Board of Grupo Salinas in a statement.
Salinas, a Mexican entrepreneur, created Grupo Salinas, which operates as a management development and decision forum for the top leaders of its member companies, including Grupo Elektra, Banco Azteca, TV Azteca, Azteca America, Afore Azteca, Seguros Azteca and Grupo Iusacell.

In November, its Grupo Elektra, a leading specialty retailer, motorcycle distributor and financial company in Latin America, formed an alliance with FAW, one of China's largest automobile manufacturers which partners with Volkswagen, Audi, Toyota and Mazda.

The alliance agreement was two-fold:

* introduce the Chinese automaker's vehicles into the Mexican market in the first quarter of 2008. So far, GS Motors has imported 5,000 FAW cars to Mexico as it establishes a sales and service network.

* build an assembly plant in Michoacan, Mexico, to produce the cars in 2010. That construction is already under way.

As for Ligocki, she most recently was CEO of Tower Automotive, a parts supplier that went into bankruptcy and later emerged from it when it was purchased by Cerberus Capital Management, the same private equity company that owns 80 percent of Chrysler. Ligocki left after the sale was completed.

Before Ligocki became CEO of Tower, she had been lured to Ford by then CEO Jac Nasser. While at Ford, she was president and CEO of Ford Mexico, vice president of marketing for North America and global vice president for Ford Motor Co. She spent her early career at suppliers United Technologies and Delphi.

Michelle Krebs:  is Editor-in-Chief of AutoObserver.com. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.