GM's 'Future Leaders': Carlos Barba
September 16, 2008
By Dale Buss
Carlos Barba will mark the 24th anniversary of his employment by General Motors on Tuesday - the same date, September 16, that GM itself was founded exactly one century ago today.
And in many ways, Barba, who is general director of GM's Latin America design studios in Sao Paulo, embodies so much of what has changed about the giant company. He's a designer working in an important developing market - but also a player in the increasingly integrated global design network that GM has been putting together to share best designs and best practices in each of its markets around the world.
"Now we're designing cars for the world here from the ground up," Barba said. "Beginning about three years ago, GM started talking about making our studio one of the four legs of the horse to improve global development, and in the last few years we've been expanding here. We have triple the number of people working [in Latin America design] than we did before, now around 200 people."
Pasadena Bootstrapper
Barba said that one reason for the expansion is that "we've been working with top management, and I think they like what they see." While his designation as a GMnext "Future Leader" is clear recognition that some of the credit is due him, Barba has a difficult time trying to put a finger on what he and his colleagues in LAAM Design might be doing right.
"As far as I'm concerned, it might be sort of the chemistry I bring: being Latin American, educated in the United States, having worked in Europe and then ending up being in Latin America - though a place not my home. It gives me a different feel for design."
Barba was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, a middle child of 12 offspring. He developed an early interest in studying industrial design, but he had to delay acting on it for several years. For one thing, the size of his parents' brood made it difficult for them to afford him outside higher education. And anyway, Barba's hometown didn't provide much possibility to pursue his goal.
So Barba entered the construction business and focused on developing his architectural and design skills until the right opportunity came along. But he was in his mid-20s when he finally decided he needed to do something drastic to "find a way of living my own life," he said.
"I made my mind up and left everything to follow car design," he said. "It was a risk, but when you're young and not married, you can take it." Specifically, Barba scraped together all the money he could, sold an old Mustang and an Austin-Healey that he owned -- and moved to California to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where he earned a half-scholarship.
Barba graduated in 1985 and immediately turned his gaze to Europe for job prospects. "It was the Mecca of cars, where they were born and where trends are really coming from," he said. After entertaining offers from Audi, Ford, Renault and GM, he said, "I chose GM because it was the best at that time."
The Art of the Pickup
One of Barba's first projects was a prominent role in the design of the interior of the new Opel Vectra. From there, he went on to work on a convertible and a two-door station wagon that GM of Europe ultimately decided not to build. He also worked on the second-generation Corsa and on the Omega, Opel's top-of-the-line vehicle at that time. Another project: what became the Cadillac Catera.
"Then we got rid of rear-wheel-drive vehicles and I started working on other types of cars," he said. "In 2002, [GM] asked me if I wanted to direct the operation in Brazil."
Barba had been in Europe for 17 years at that point and, he said, never had considered returning to Latin America. "If I thought about going elsewhere with GM, it was the United States," he remembered. "But I hadn't imagined how beautiful Brazil was and the operation here."
GM's Brazilian design staff have been working closely with their counterparts in GM of Europe on Opel vehicles, including the Meriva MPV, and derivatives for Latin American markets. Also, during Barba's tenure, GM has been continuing to develop the Sao Paulo facility, in conjunction with GM's Isuzu affiliate, as its global base for small-pickup design and development.
"The pickup is a very special vehicle," waxed Barba. "It's understood in completely different ways all over the world. You have to appeal to a younger market and an older market. It's also a working vehicle. Yet you have to pay attention to its aerodynamics and weight and the other essential things that you have to have for fuel economy.
"We're very zealous about doing it right."
Carlos Barba
Title: General Director, Design, GM of Latin America
Location: Sao Paulo, Brazil
Age: 54
Born: Mexico
Personal: Married with children ages 15 and 18.
Spare-time pursuits: Architecture and music. "I put my heart and soul into my work, but I'm trying to balance it."
Business heroes: Architects including Frank Lloyd Wright and Oscar Niemeyer, who designed much of Brasilia, the gleaming modern capital city of Brazil.
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