GM's 'Future Leaders': Sheila Jain Sarver
By Michelle Krebs September 15, 2008By Dale Buss
As newly promoted vice president of engineering for General Motors of India, Sheila Jain Sarver is on the front lines of the company's crucial efforts to expand its share of the rapidly growing car market there.
Her recent promotion from the position of director of engineering and operations "underscores the significance of what we're doing in India to raise our technology footprint here in what we expect to be a key market," said the 44-year-old American born to parents of Indian descent. Increasingly, technology and vehicles GM develops in Bangalore, heart of the area known as the "Silicon Valley of India," also will be important in other markets ranging from China to the United States.
Of course, her elevation - and her designation as a "future leader" - also recognized Sarver's accomplishments and value to GM. The career engineering executive arrived in Bangalore in 2003 to launch GM's Indian technical center from scratch, and now more than 1,000 people staff the thriving outpost. "I do have aspirations," she said, "to greater positions of corporate leadership."
Sarver also has strategically made herself a champion of Indian professional women who are just beginning to confront a thick glass ceiling. "It's one of my responsibilities as a senior female leader in the company, and on a personal level, it's important to me," she said.
GM Roots
Her Michigan upbringing included a father who retired from GM after 38 years and her undergraduate degree from Kettering University, formerly General Motors Institute, as well as an MBA from the University of Michigan. Sarver began with the company as a validation engineer of electrical components and eventually rose to interior operations manager, where she helped implement a strategy that was new to GM: developing suppliers' capabilities for delivering complete interior trim systems.
Sarver then spent a few months as vehicle operations manager at GM's Milford, Mich., proving grounds before the call to a position that she saw as involving some element of destiny: launching the Bangalore center, one of four technical complexes that GM has opened in the Asia-Pacific market.
"We've said we're going to continue to be aggressive about growing our presence in India because we're committed to being an industry leader here," Sarver said. "And we came to Bangalore because the talent is here. We've been very successful because we have a very strong global brand and have been able to attract the best and the brightest, although it is a very competitive environment for talent."
When she asks interviewees why they might want to join GM, Sarver said, often the answer has something to do with the company "being a world leader, and they want to be part of a world-class operation."
Among Sarver's operational challenges is to ensure that vehicles developed in Bangalore can meet the extremely harsh conditions of many Indian roads and also to guarantee that they're easily adaptable to the particular safety and environmental regulations of multiple markets. Yet Sarver said she also is emphasizing "how we can implement what we know to be the best practices in the whole company here in India as we ramp up engineering operations - and avoid the invent-everything-here mindset."
Champion for Women
Lately, GM also has asked Sarver and her staff to accelerate development of powertrains using alternative fuels such as compressed natural gas, for India and other markets. GM of India's strength in "virtual engineering" is another area "where we think we will lead the company," Sarver said.
Beyond what GM is expecting out of Indian engineering, Sarver carries an additional burden: that of being a prominent woman in a manufacturing and technology business in India.
"There aren't a lot of women in senior technical positions in India, so the network is much smaller than in the United States," she said. "There isn't the same support system outside your family." Partly as a result, Sarver actually helped launch the GM India Women's Council a couple of years ago and has remained active in building the networking group.
Sarver's unusual stature is enhanced by the fact that, while her family background and traditions are ethnic Indian, she herself is an American with resulting business and cultural sensibilities.
"As an American, we tend to start and end business on time, but that's not the business culture here, so I have to get used to that," she said. "It's my responsibility to bring in the GM culture without offending the [Indian] culture I grew up in and expecting it to understand. It is difficult. You want to have tolerance, but you want to do the job."
Sheila Jain Sarver
Title: Vice President, Engineering, GM of India
Location: GM Technical Centre, Bangalore, India
Age: 44
Born: United States
Personal: Married to a Rockwell Automation manager with children ages 16, 15 and 10.
Spare-time pursuits: Reading books, often three at a time, including technical manuals and Nicholas Sparks novels. Shopping with her daughters. Also: "I'm committed to a 30-minute walk every day, because it's challenging to be here, and the job is tough. Plus it sets the tone for the rest of the day, and the older you get the more important it becomes."
Business heroes: "I don't have to look very far - they're right in the company," including Jim Queen, GM's head of global engineering, and Katy Barclay, its vice president of global human resources.
A transcript of a live chat between Sheila Jain Sarver is available on GMnext.
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