GM just announced that it appointed Mark Reuss to the position of president of GM North America. Reuss will be taking over the president position of the recently-resigned CEO and president Fritz Henderson. Most recently, Reuss served as GM vice president of global vehicle engineering and prior to that, as president and managing director of Holden in Australia.

Reuss is set to host a teleconference on Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 8:30 a.m. EST, which replaces the previously scheduled call with GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre. GM Authority will be live-streaming the conference with an open chat room at our Live page.

The GM Authority Take

Based on what we (and our sources) know about Reuss, we believe this is a good decision. Reuss is an engineer at heart (he helped develop the beloved Zeta platform) but also knows the business side of the automotive world.

Reuss’ work at Holden has equipped him with a different (dare we say better?) perspective when it comes to building cars because Holden operates in a very different way compared to GM North America: it serves Australia – a market that’s geographically almost the size of the United States yet has roughly the population of Texas. As such, Holden’s operations run leaner – something Reuss has undoubtedly learned to accomplish. Also, Holden is much more vertically-integrated compared to its parent company in the U.S.

It’s important to note that former executives Fritz Henderson and Rick Wagoner held titles of CEO and president, while Reuss has been appointed to the position of president only. At the present time, Chairman Ed Whitacre is retaining the duties of CEO.

Reminder: GM Authority will be live-streaming Reuss’ conference call with an open chat room and a pre- and post-conference netcast at our Live page starting at 8:00 a.m. EST, Tuesday, December 8th.