Nine days ago, Michael Richards took over Susan Docherty’s old job as brand manager of Buick-GMC. Today, GM announced that he’s out. Here’s GM’s official statement written by Susan Docherty (who was recently promoted to vice president of Sales, Support, and Marketing of GM North America):

Buick GMC General Manager, Michael Richards, has elected to leave General Motors to pursue other career opportunities.  We wish him the very best.  A replacement will be announced in the near future.

The Detroit News is reporting that the official (yet still unofficial) reason behind Richards’ resignation is an enticing counter offer by his previous employer, Trinity Automotive, in Austin, TX. Also, little birdies have been letting us know that there’s more to this development than what initially meets the eye: take, for example, the recent resignation of 31-year GM veteran Brent Dewar from his post as chief of Chevrolet. Dewar was appointed to his post in July by ex-CEO Fritz Henderson who unexpectedly resigned/was ousted from GM December 1. Dewar was instantly replaced with Jim Campbell, Fleet and Commercial Operations manager for Chevy. It’s as if the Dewar-Campbell shuffle was… orchestrated!

As such, it seems fairly obvious that both Richards’ and Dewar’s sudden resignations are somehow related to Henderson’s departure. It can definitely be a strange feeling when the same guy that hired you, and with whom you agreed on so many issues, is packing up his office things into a brown box and walking out the building.

For the time being, Buick-GMC is left without anyone at the helm. Perhaps Carl-Peter Forster would care to take over this position? On the other hand, probably not – he resigned long ago.