General Motors’ vice president of innovation, Pamela Fletcher, has left the company to join Delta Airlines.
According to Automotive News, Fletcher will serve as Delta’s chief sustainability officer and will officially move into the role on February 1st.
Fletcher, 55, was named GM’s vice president of innovation back in 2018 following a stint as one of the automaker’s leading electric vehicle engineers, reporting directly to GM CEO Mary Barra. She previously led the team behind the Chevrolet Bolt EV, GM’s first series production long-range BEV, and has also played a key role in establishing GM’s future electric vehicle plans.
Along with overseeing various GM electric vehicle programs, Fletcher also contributed to the development of GM’s Super Cruise hands-free semi-autonomous driving system, which premiered on the 2018 Cadillac CT6 and is now offered on a variety of GM vehicles, including the Cadillac Escalade and Chevy Bolt EUV.
In her role as GM’s vice president of innovation, Fletcher helped develop new business models and streams of revenue for the automaker through internal start-up ventures such as BrightDrop,
OnStar Insurance and GM Defense.“Pam is credited for her natural ability to build talented teams, especially when working on new technologies like EV and AV, for developing innovative business models and seeing what’s possible,” GM said in a statement addressing her departure.
Fletcher will be tasked with making Delta a more eco-friendly airline in her new role as the company’s chief sustainability officer, CEO Ed Bastian said.
“As we move into the next phase of the recovery, we’ll be building on our sustainability efforts and expanding our leading position in the industry on our path to net zero,” Bastian explained. “I’m happy to announce that Pamela Fletcher will be joining Delta to lead that effort as our new Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer – the airline industry’s only C-Suite level CSO.”
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Comments
was she pushed out? how do you go from being responsible for gm’s shift to ev’s/autonomy to being an eco-shopper and head recycler for delta airlines?
Yeah, and I’d say that she’s ‘taking a ‘red eye’ on her way over. (‘- )
At the company that I work for you could always determine if the employee departure was amiable or hostile: if gm threw her a party it was amiable. No party meant that Pam was canned.
She can develop an electric plane.
Yeah, that’s the ticket! Electric airplanes! What could possibly go wrong …….?
I met her once where she was guest speaker introducing the Cadillac ELR to a Silicon Valley group. In the Q&A that followed, I stood up and asked her “Why did GM choose Chevrolet instead of Cadillac for the first extended range car?” She paused for a moment, smiled and responded “that is something that many within the company have also wondered”.
Easy answer. Tesla set out to build a sports-gadget car that happened to be electric because they thought a bunch of nerds would buy it. GM built an electric car as close to the price range of an ICE vehicle as possible because they thought the problem was EVs were too expensive.
One is Silicon Valley thinking, one is Detroit thinking.
Tesla got a pricey car. GM got a subcompact econo-commute car. Tesla marketed it as a luxury car. GM could only sell it as a city commute car.
The Bolt is very similar to the Spark. Only so much lipstick you can put on a $13.6k platform.
Well, with the bolt program going down in flames, someone had to pay the price. Doesn’t matter how much value she provided the company with the other projects she was on, the bolt fiasco was too much for any person to survive through.
… if it is to serve me a Coke or saying me to close the tiny curtain when sun shines inside… wanting to see clouds, stars, galaxies, the ocean 12 km down, the beautiful skies nuances … as a flight attendant, mean waitress, she is too old, but still blonde, even when that is fake.
why this word ‘sustainability’ is so in mode ?
it was others, for example ‘Benchmarking’ ‘Downsizing’ ‘Challenge’ etc maybe today reinterpreted ‘Suvizing’ do not know
because they need to appear green to get the green.
know… like ‘ultimate greta’ .. sure
Steve, you hit it right on the head. That is the best description of what is really going on that I have heard ! Well said Sir
Is black clothing and leather jackets part of the new dress code at gm?
Tigger: The black clothing and leather jackets are part of the new dress code at gm. It’s reimaging to change with popular culture.
Discussion:
We are now living in the Bad Ass style mode. Note Tattoo parlors on just about every corner. Beards and ballcaps with sunglasses on the bills of ballcaps, flannel shirts, etc. Crew cab lifted full size diesel pickups. This current style trend is popularized and created by the very successful Harley Davidson culture.
Just like years ago when the Leo Burnett advertising agency in Chicago created the Western culture image for Phillip Morris cigarettes with the Marlboro Man. This was a mega marketing play.
This took full size pickups from commercial – utility vehicles to ride and handling vehicles with a western flavor. Full size pickups became loaded. Note names, Lariat, King Ranch, Cheyenne, Sierra, Silverado, Ram, etc. Then comes Mustang, Pinto, Bronco with Ford.
A lot of the marketing and displays at SEMA 2021 were bad ass themed. It’s the macho playbook. This is marketing. This is selling. BTW: The name Eldorado represents a large ranch.
Get them black threads, leathers and boots out.
Even Joe Biden is now donning the macho cool dude look with the aviator glasses. Wonder if Vladimir Putin will start doing the same? Bad Ass sells.
thanks alot of information
Seems like GM is losing some top execs. Wonder why
I will miss Pamela Fletcher….
I remember laughing when she would talk about “Reactionary Forces” to a team of engineers during the public unveiling of the 2011 VOLT, and then watching all the engineers’ faces grimace.
I figure she originally got her job as the HEAD SECRETARY..
Time for her to try some of her magic over at the Airline Industry.
Two major reasons why anyone who is an executive in the General Motors hierarchy leaves the business…one, they are thrown out for incompetency (god only knows GM sometimes hires incompetent people) and two, they leave GM on their own because they’ve reached a stagnation point where they can go no higher in the company and GM, being a “heartless beast” of a company simply allows them to leave and is always looking for “new blood” that’ll work for “minimum wages” (in the high line executives realm) and of course there is always a larger than normal changing of personnel within GM.
Obviously Pamela Fletcher has figured out that staying with GM won’t be good for her “retirement age health”, and by going to another major corporation at her age and with her abilities (such as they are) she’d be better off dropping her short stint with GM. You don’t simply leave a major corporation, going from an Automotive to an Airline configuration unless you’re damn sure that you can make more money (logical) and move up with the company especially when approaching retirement age within 10 years or so.
Will this be a good move for GM….who knows, GM does the craziest things, I know working for GM for close to 40 years and seeing them do the “dumbest things imaginable” and retiring out still with my mental and physical health in in decent shape. Working for GM was an experience, some good, some not so good. GM has always had the ability to “punch above it’s weight” and build amazing products…but sadly they don’t always do this and when they get lackadaisical and become lethargic (as they are now doing, being way behind in available products that can compete in the market place) they tend to “dump people at an alarming rate in area’s that can save them money but only puts them that much further behind in developmental capabilities.
Think I’m wrong here? Okay then, where is GM’s competitive vehicles for the new Ford Bronco, the Ford “Lightening” truck, the Ford Maverick compact truck, the Ford Mustang Mach E ? While Ford is selling the daylights out of vehicles like these which are perfect for todays marketplace, GM is simply left with “EV’s that catch fire” (The Bolt twins) and a soon to be released mega money Cadillac EV and mega money Hummer. Pathetic, just pathetic. But, that’s the way GM “rolls” (sic) always waiting to see what the competition is building and what they are selling in large numbers, and then…they’ll quickly put something together that be half the success as what the competition is already building and selling.
GM is a “creature of habit”…however every once in a while, they’ll surprise the crap out of everyone and actually build a product that’s actually innovative and amazing…ergo, the new C8 Corvette. Nice try GM, but don’t stop there, don’t rest on your laurels and a few “Awards”…being thrown your way. But, alas…once again GM has allowed the competition to run away from them in popular marketable products that the public will buy in large numbers. You blew it again GM!
Like rats leaving a sinking ship.
This is actually the second time she quit GM. After being away for a while, went back to GM on the it’s who you know, not what you know plan. Former wife of the lead engine builder for Dale Earnhardt Incorporated.
In the big corporate world just one fatal mistake turns you into toast. Also you can be doing stellar like Lee Ioccoca was doing at Ford, but he flew too close to the sun and rubbed Hank the Duce the wrong way and ended up toast. The same thing happen to Bunkie Knudsen at Ford with Henry Ford II. It’s politics and kissing butt to the extreme.