General Motors CEO Mary Barra had been named the Forbes Most Powerful Woman for three years straight: 2015, 2016 and 2017. But, for 2018, Barra has fallen to second place.
The publication released its new rankings showing the GM CEO landing behind Marillyn Hewson, CEO, President and Chairman of Lockheed Martin. Her position leaves her in charge of the U.S. government’s largest contractor. Notably, the company she oversees catered to President Trump’s request for a “Space Force” and she’s also in charge of developing hypersonic weapons. As China and Russia work to be first with the weapons, which travel five times the speed of sound, the U.S. has placed a major emphasis on its own program.
Last year, Hewson landed in third place behind Barra.
As for Barra herself, Forbes said GM has hit a few speed bumps since the last round of rankings. The publication noted the Chevrolet Bolt EV has slipped in the sales race behind Tesla’s Model 3 electric car, and a China-U.S. trade war continues to threaten the automaker’s profits. GM also recorded a $3.9 billion loss in 2017, though the figure comes after the new U.S. tax law was passed into effect. She secured the number two spot for a few good reasons, however.
Barra earned a significant investment from Japan’s SoftBank for GM Cruise, the division developing the automaker’s self-driving car technology. And she remains persistent that GM will roll out a self-driving ride-share service in 2019 somewhere in the United States. Last year, she made the top spot after being first to market in the affordable electric-car segment with the Bolt EV and for expanding GM’s Maven mobility services. At the time of the list’s publishing last year, GM share prices had also climbed 25 percent, but the automaker’s stock has consistently tumbled this year.
Next year provides Barra another shot at securing the top ranking, especially if GM gets its self-driving car service off of the ground in a timely and safe manner.
Comments
Anyone else notice Sean’s obsession with women, in particular Mrs. Mary Barra? Almost every story ever written by him is some weird obsession with Barra or some other female.
Sean, you might want to consider therapy. And that is coming from a FEMALE. Get help, Sean.
The referenced-to article was about ‘most powerful woman’, Shirls. What’s he supposed to write about? Guys?
Yes, he could take her to task about a flat-line price per share (unless you were a market-timer). Or Cadillac. Or not taking a stronger leadership position with Washington on the tariffs that have affected GM, and pretty much the entire industry.
Or GM marketing.
But it’s from Forbes. It’s about women.
And the #1 who nosed her out on the basis of the Space Force and hypersonic weapons and increased military spending – well, they use a lot of steel and aluminum, too. Gov’t picks up the tab, though.
Anyway – like I said – ‘most powerful women’ is the subject of the article.
Why would Sean post about anything else?
The tinfoil is meant to be a hat… not an enema.
No offense to the lady above, but to put things into prospective about females being powerful….
A 40-year female bureaucrat who road the coattails of her prior President husband to fame and “achievement”, had 5 times the political campaign funding of her MALE rival, the corrupt mainstream media in her back pocket, and every (fake) poll saying she had a 96% chance of winning and her male rival “would never be President” LOST to said male rival.
Poor Sean, the sore-loser female obsession is really getting to him these days isn’t it…Sean, the female will NEVER be President. Something you will just have to accept some day…
lol
Now, now…Sean is still in mourning over the (his) most humiliating election loss in history. Don’t be too hard on him, okay?
3 people in a row personally attacking a journalist on this blog who is just bringing some facts… I don’t know what’s going on, but can’t we all show some respect for each other’s opinions and enter into a healthy debate instead of personally attacking people? So the guy likes women, what’s wrong with that ??
I have been increasingly surprised (and quite frankly, often shocked) at seeing how simple facts and figures on a CAR blog immediately translate into political stuff, and then evolve to personal attacks from one reader to another. Can’t we all show some courtesy and respect towards each other in what should be our common passion (GM) ?
It’s really just one person. One very lonely person who is still going on about election results from almost 2 years ago.
So Trump won. Okay. While the rest of the world is getting on with their lives, reminding everyone of Trumps win is the only thing they’ve done for the last 2 years. It’s not even constructive or productive; when has posting on social media platforms ever been constructive or productive?
He’s likely unemployed or not fully employed, and probably has minimal education. He’s also tried to bluff his way with his networking knowledge claiming that he could reveal other’s IP address (but not their MAC address)
The best you can do is pity him for not doing more with his life, because you know if he’s wasting his efforts here, he’s wasting on other websites too.
I knew Mitch McConnell was going to steal it from her.