Case Study 2
Case Study 2
Homegrown Talent: Mary Barra Rises to GM’s Top Post
When Mary Barra was a kid, she used to hang out in the garage with her dad tinkering on
cars. Little did her father, a lifelong die-maker for GM’s Pontiac division, know that his
daughter would one day become the CEO of the company and the first woman ever to lead
a major U.S. car manufacturer. But that’s what happened in 2013. Barra was unanimously
chosen by the board members of General Motors to lead the company—a decision
employees cheered when they heard about it over the loudspeakers at corporate
headquarters. Maybe they cheered because unlike GM’s previous two CEOs, Barra was
one of them. Having worked in multiple departments at GM since she was 18, she knows
the car business through and through. “There’s nobody with more years of honest ‘car guy’
credentials than she has,” says Ross Gordon in the Ross School of Business at the
University of Michigan.
Barra, who grew up in a Detroit suburb, initially began working for GM in the 1980s as part
of a work-study program. In this program, which is also referred to as a co-op program,
students alternate working full time (for pay) and going to college. She earned an
undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and GM later sent her to Stanford, where
she got an MBA. During her career she has rotated through various positions at GM.
Besides working in engineering and design, she managed one GM’s manufacturing plants
and most recently was the senior vice president for global product development and quality
control. Under her watch, the company has rolled out successful models that have helped
bring the company back out of bankruptcy during the latest economic recession.
Barra has a reputation for getting results. Not only does she know cars, she knows people
and how to manage them. When an updated version of the Chevy Malibu floundered
because of design and other problems, she mobilized a team of employees and found a
way to fix the Malibu in record time. Her great people management skills might explain why
when GM was going through bankruptcy, she was put in charge of human resources for
GM, an area she had never worked in before. GM hoped putting her in the job would
prevent key talent from heading for the exits during the bankruptcy process. It did and GM
bounced back. In 2016, GM sold more than 10 million vehicles worldwide, and its net
income exceeded $9 billion. GM’s Chevy Volt was named North American Car of the Year in
2017, and the company announced a partnership to develop on-demand, self-driving
vehicles in conjunction with the ride-sharing company Lyft. In short, the company is on a roll.
Sue Meisinger, formerly the president and CEO of the Society of Human Resources
Management, says that Barra’s being named CEO underscores the importance of HR
personnel working in and understanding different areas of their firms. “If you’re interested in
a career path that extends beyond HR, you need to have experience in multiple facets of
the business,” Meisinger says. She notes that for many HR professionals, their crowning
achievement is to be the head of HR. Barra’s rise to CEO, however, will have many of these
professionals shifting their career goals.
Questions
1. Mary Barra’s father worked at General Motors. Was her hiring an example of
nepotism? If you were a business owner, would you want to hire relatives of
your employees? What would the pros and cons of doing so be?
2. What role did Mary Barra play in advancing her career? What role did GM
play in “growing” her career?