General Motors has promoted Steve Carlisle, current president of Cadillac, to executive vice president and president of GM North America.
Carlisle will replace current president of GM North America, Barry Engle, who is leaving GM “to pursue leadership opportunities that leverage his broad executive expertise in a variety of industries,” the automaker said in a statement.
Raised in Woodstock, Ontario, Carlisle began his GM career in 1982 as an industrial engineering co-op student at the Oshawa Assembly Plant. He eventually rose through GM Canada’s executive ranks and was named president and managing director of GM Canada in 2014. He has also held numerous other roles within the company including managing director of GM Southeast Asia Operations (2007-2010), vice president, U.S. Sales Operations, (2010), vice president and Global Product Planning and Program Management (2010-2014).
“Steve will help us scale the considerable transformation progress we have been making, while at the same time preserving the sufficient autonomy necessary to maintain four distinct vehicle brands,” GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra said in a prepared statement. “This role will build on Steve’s progressive leadership within GM, particularly over the past two years at Cadillac. This change will also improve the collaboration and decision-making that fuel innovation.”
Barry Engle
Barra also credited Engle’s efforts in his departure, saying the 56-year old’s efforts over the past five years “leave (GM) fundamentally better positioned to deliver on the vision of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion.”
“Barry has been a strong contributor to our transformation efforts – first in South America, then more broadly across all operations outside North America and China, and ultimately running North America,” she added.
Engle had served as the executive vice president and president of GM North America since November 2019, and as executive vice president and president of GM Americas from April 2019 to October 2019. He held numerous executive positions during his tenure with the company, which began when he took over as executive vice president and president for South America in September of 2015.
With Carlisle out at Cadillac, the automaker’s day-to-day operations will be Rory Harvey, who will serve as the brand’s vice president of sales, service and marketing. Harvey has held numerous executive roles within GM throughout Europe and the Middle East and previously served as the chairman and managing director of Vauxhall Motors. GM has not yet named a new Cadillac president yet and it seems the automaker will go on without one for now. We’ve reached out to GM for comment on the matter, but had to hear back at the time of publication.
Comments
The revolving door of Cadillac leadership continues, but this time with no replacement in queue. Great planning GM! You said how electrification is Cadillac’s last chance to reinvent itself and get back in the game, but you can’t hold a leader at the top to see that last chance through.
Yeah but it’s not like he left, he got promoted.
Damn GM for hiring within……….
Some people around here have never heard of what a promotion is I fear.
And, that would be, ‘The Peter Principal’, right?
I will forever be baffled that GM somehow convinced Johan to accept their offer and then basically force him out the Door because he didn’t fit their Bean-counter Culture.. Dumbest thing ever.
Cadillac deserves better than what GM has been giving them. It is so sad.
It used to be one got promoted because of significant accomplishments, seems SC gets promoted for towing the company line. He’s done nothing to improve Cadillac vehicles or sales, but he’s got the favor of Typhoid Mary… Sad…
Steve’s an Automotive Engineer who ran the whole show in Canada’s for several years .He is not a bean counter hopefully he will bring new life and ideas to the stalled North American ,build it in the Far East manufacturing Mixed message on most new models and get Our North American operations back in the mind of Mary !
lets sign a petition to make Tadge the president of GM
When your hairline gets to the point of Barry Engle’s you might as well give in and shave the rest off.
Same goes for Steve.
Sing the corporate tune and reap the rewards, Management 101.
It’s clear that GM doesn’t want the President of Cadillac (or any division) to be a true leader. JDN was too out spoken (which I enjoyed bc he was pushing boundaries) and SC is the exact opposite. We all know Mark Ruess is calling the shots for Caddy (as noted on GMA articles) and Steve was/is a yes man
Plenty of yes men left in Mark’s cigar club to back fill SC’s former slot. Even more in line for triple zero cool aid.
Something smells here!!
Another sad day at Cadillac obviously.
Can someone translate this for me, please: “Steve will help us scale the considerable transformation progress we have been making, while at the same time preserving the sufficient autonomy necessary to maintain four distinct vehicle brands,”
I don’t know whether I can translate “GM corporate-speak,” but I sure CAN smell B.S. from a mile away. It sounds to me like they’re saying, Steve will be working with us as we reduce the number of platforms and option combinations that we will be using for vehicles going forward, as well as helping us transition our product line to electric vehicles. And if he can put a positive spin on our market share which continues to decline, all the better. While we think these engineering changes are important for the success of our business, we admit that we can’t go too far or GM’s four main vehicle brands will become indistinct and at-risk of consumer rejection, like during the rebadging fever of the ’70s and ’80s. We’ve cautioned Steve that if we now use Chevrolet components in Cadillacs, we must do a better job of hiding that fact. If he doesn’t, he’ll be out the door like Johann.
And he must figure out how to respond to Chevrolet’s objections that Buick is getting “prettier” exterior designs than them, even though Chevrolet hogs every vehicle category under the sun for themself.
Thanks for trying. I still have no idea what she is saying but then she seldom makes sense to me. What she says and what GM does usually are two different things. GM clearly does not have four distinct brands.
BMW has three distinct brands; MINI, BMW, and Rolls Royce. There’s nothing about those three brands that looks or feels the same. That’s what distinct brands look like. GMC and Chevrolet are not distinct nor are two brands where a Cadillac Escalade and Chevrolet Tahoe are pretty much the same product.
Steven, don’t forget your home location Oshawa Assembly Operations Since you were the President of GM of Canada and tried to save it prior to being sent to Cadillac ,then it was chopped by Detroit .One of the best facilities in youR assembly chain sitting almost idol ,you came up through the engineering ranks ,you know it potential and 100 year history And loyalty to GM!
Finally! Cadillac beats out BMW X4 and Lexus named for Best Compact Premium SUV for initial quality. That’s quite a leap from once considered having a “cheap” interior for that class. Hopefully this will help to draw new interest.
Biggest collection of do nothing automotive idiots, it’s amazing that GM is still afloat. I predict that GM will be history in 10 years. The all electric platform , which GM wants to wrap around everything it makes except Corvette , will be a complete failure since GM prepares, and plans, for nothing. All they do at the top is sit around and pat one another on the back for doing nothing.
It is sad that this company, just 10 years ago, was saved from bankruptcy, and is now headed in that direction again. They have dumped over 50% of the product that they had for sale. Soon, they will have no automobiles to sell, only pick-up trucks and SUV’s, which many people, like myself, have no use for.
Cadillac’s line up will consist of two mediocre sedans, which will not sell, and four SUV’s , the worst they have had in Cadillac history….
Buick has NO automobiles, just four SUV’s, three imported, and one domestic. What an awful line-up. Their worst ever….
Chevrolet will soon have no automobiles, with the exception of the Corvette, and what a mess they have made with it’s production. and the rest all pick-ups and SUV’s. Again, their worst line-up ever….
GMC isn’t even worth mentioning since they are all Chevy’s with different badging ….
I talked to a prominent Chevy dealer in Md. who said…….you give us a $1000 deposit now to get your name on a wait list, then come in to the dealership in March 2021 and we sit down to build out your Corvette, and you should get it around June/July 2021……….really.
Supposedly you have 600 people on that list that have given you $1000 or more, thats $600,000 for the dealership to invest over 8, 9, 10,11,12 months before you get your Corvette, what a racket……and a mess for Chevrolet
They told me Chevy already has 15,000 orders for the 2021 Corvette. With 2020 production topping out at around 28,000, and supposedly another 40,000 2021 Corvettes produced, thats around 68,000 Corvettes give or take by November 2021 when the 2022 start rolling….Quite a saturated market. It looks like Corvette will be the savior of GM, not the SUV…
What I can’t figure out is why they don’t make a Cadillac variant of the Corvette, think what this would do for sagging Cadillac sales. It would sell better than that dinosaur Escalade…..But then GM never plans anything except their own extinction……………
While I concur w/ you on some things about the product line-up, the automobile market has changed. Rather that is good or bad to you, the market for automobiles and consumer tastes is different now compared to 20 years ago.
GM earned a profit for the first quarter in spite of the pandemic. It will be interesting if they can repeat similar results for the 2nd quarter.
A mid-engined Cadillac is a halo car that could start off at $120K in a limited market. The C8 is so good, it makes the mid-engined Cadillac obsolete in the first place. Also, you are kidding yourself and living in the past if you think that car will outsell the Escalade.
As long GM is making efficient planning, not taking many short cuts, study the market and make products people want that are profitable; they will have better chance of survival in the future as long the market does not change over at a rapid pace like it is now in this pandemic of COVID.
After not truly giving a damn about Cadillac, gm “promotes” someone away what they already deemed as hopeless in their exercise toward a self-fulfilling prophecy. I sort of shook my head at people claiming gm and Cadillac would go under, but honestly, I think it will happen before 2030. They’re always one step behind trying to catch up with the competition for too long. The symbolic nail sin the coffin to me were never building the escala or whatever the super-lux car was, then killing the blackwing. They’re chasing SUVs but forgetting gm is the only American company that can still build true luxury cars and a Ferrari equal. Lincoln has eaten Cadillacs lunch there, Buick will soon be extinct, they killed the volt and what’s left? The Trax and the equinox, worst 2 American cars I’ve driven in 30 years. Once they kill the Vette it’s over
John,
I don’t support a Cadillac variant of the Corvette. They tried that once with XLR; it didn’t work. Plus, that isn’t at all the kind of product Cadillac needs. However, if everything you say about Corvette sales is true, it does point out what happens when the engineers are in charge and dedicated to delivering excellence as opposed to GM’s merry band of beancounters that marginalize everything they touch.
While I don’t love the C8 (because of its incongruent design), I do think it represents the kind of ‘swing for the fences’ effort Cadillac needs, It’s clear that Tadge and his team had the kind of free reign to do a world-class product and Ms. Mary ought to be able to see what happens in the showroom when the folks who love cars get to actually practice their passion. People stand in line, money in hand, to get their hands on the fruits of the labor of the passionate. No rebates or zero percent financing deals are needed.
I do agree with the rest of your comments. Things at GM keep getting worse. There are no compelling products at Buick as its just a repository for global GM products to be sold in the US now; nothing more. Buick should just be called Opel now, except Mary sold that. There are no compelling products at Cadillac; their lineup is truly sad. After all the hype about a new product every six months, its hard to fathom this sad lineup is the result but it is. Chevrolet is the best-sourced brand GM has and if one likes utility type vehicles, theirs are pretty good but if not, shop elsewhere.
They can always call Buick Geo….
Sad to say but GM seems to be on downward trajectory that they won’t get out of. Similar to another iconic brand , Harley Davidson. I predict both companies are not around in ten years. I hope I’m wrong.
Congrats on the new job & Office/Personal Assistant change in that Ivory Tower stuffed with clueless overpaid suits & ties. Can you please get some eye balls & some talent on
board to address the Trainwreck the previous stuffed shirt made of Buick. AND get Buick production OUT OF CHINA for God’s sakes!!
Something has happened to Cadillac design and follow up quality care.
Right now my 2014′ sits with a frozen touch screen with no assistance from GM period.
Re-thinking my next purchase for sure.
Very sad and the dealership I bought my last 4 cars
from remains with their hands in their deep pockets as well.
Steve Fioley of Northbrook, IL needs a spanked.