Back in December of 2009 Ed Whitacre was appointed interim CEO of GM. Whitacre ruffled his features and a major change in upper management took place including the appointment of Mark Reuss President of GM North America & Susan Docherty Chief of US Sales as well as Whitacre removing the “interim” before his name. Now that musical chairs are finished & everyone knows who’s in what chair let’s see how GM does in 2010. Stability was the word of the day from Whitacre, stating that that’s what GM needs right now & that “stability” was him! Since Whitacre’s appointment & ascension to a more permanent title, he marks the last of the 3 Detroit Motor-groups to be run by a “automotive newcomer”. Ford CEO Alan Mulally is a former Boeing executive & Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne a former lawyer/accountant, and now Whitacre a former AT&T CEO and even had ties to ExxonMobil.
One of GM’s plans has already gone a muck…
…
GM is trying to push the Cadillac franchise in the larger city/metropolitan areas & pulling from the smaller less populated areas. GM has been trying to bring it’s struggling luxury brand up to par with other brands like Mercedes, BMW & Lexus which all have this targeted market strategy. Very soon we could see only about 500 Cadillac Dealerships, down from 1400+. Dealers who lost their Cadillac brand and new potential homes for the brand have not been taking well to this latest push sending Cadillac into turmoil.
