Mary Barra Inducted Into The Automotive Hall Of Fame
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GM CEO Mary Barra was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame on July 20th, 2023 for being the first woman CEO in the auto industry as well as being “one of today’s most inspirational leaders” according to the Hall’s commentary on the induction.
Mary Barra was announced as a 2023 Automotive Hall of Fame Inductee on February 10th last year, and was officially inducted at the late July 2023 ceremony carried out as a black tie event at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan.
Mary Barra, who took the helm at The General in January 2014, is hailed by the Automotive Hall of Fame for significant contributions in several areas. The Hall says she “envisions a world with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion.”
This description refers to her electrification plans calling for GM to introduce 30 new electric vehicles worldwide by 2025. It also underlines expansion of the automaker’s autonomous vehicle subsidiary Cruise, which recently partnered with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD.
“Improving the customer experience and strengthening GM’s core vehicle and services business” is another highlight from the tenure of Mary Barra as GM CEO, the Hall says. She is also the first female auto OEM CEO and has worked for equal pay and gender equity.
Five other auto industry personalities are being inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame alongside Mary Barra. These include entrepreneur Fred Bauer, who founded the company that developed the electrochromic auto-dimming rearview mirror, Gentex, and Argentinian race car driver Juan Manuel Fangio, a five-time World Championship of Drivers winner.
The other three inductees for this year’s ceremony are Honda Motor Co. co-founder Takeo Fujisawa, Ford automotive designer McKinley Thompson, and designer of Mattel diecast cars Larry R. Wood, known by the sobriquet of “Mr. Hot Wheels.”
The venue for the induction ceremony is The Fillmore Detroit, a theater originally built in Renaissance Revival style in 1925. The Automotive Hall of Fame event starts with an invitation-only “VIP meet and greet,” followed by a general reception, a three-course dinner, the induction and awards ceremony itself when Mary Barra and other inductees will be honored, and a two-hour “afterglow.”
Automotive Hall of Fame president Sarah Cook described Mary Barra and her fellow inductees as “trailblazing innovators and leaders who have left an impact globally on the automotive industry” during the initial announcement of the awards.
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“Leadership”? eh…..
…”for being the first woman CEO in the auto industry”…
For some reason, gender is the perfect qualifier for awards and trophies, despite the corporate HR rhetoric stating that nobody is hired or dismissed because of their gender, age, race, etc, etc…an so on and so forth…
Acknowledging her accomplishment of being the first CEO in an industry with few women in high-up executive positions and no others at her level is not the same as talking about not discriminating during the hiring process. Not sure why that qualifier made you make that connection.
Why in the world does this continual gender/color classification of people mean so much versus that person’s specific talents, qualifications, and accomplishments?
It’s one line in the whole article and it’s all you seem to care about. Maybe just be honest and just say how you really feel instead of feigning ignorance. It’s not like you wouldn’t have people disagreeing with whatever you’re going to say anyway.
Blind praise because of someone’s gender or color is ridiculously shallow.
But it’s hip on college campuses and in media newsrooms, so all men and women must automatically be experts within their industries, based on someone’s physical attributes?
the intention with which you’re missing the point can be seen from space. get bent, dork
Ah yes, best intentions….
As long as you’re intentions are good, or feel good, results don’t matter….nor does a person’s ability to be great at their job.
Again, ridiculously shallow.
Couldn’t have said it better. Thank you.
We will never achieve true equality in this nation as long as we keep referring to non-white males as the first/best/only (insert adjective here). I personally do not care about the race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. of a person as long as they are the BEST PERSON FOR THE JOB! As we have seen with the Biden Administration, a lot of boxes were checked, but the people filling those positions are absolutely ineffective.
Regardless of your opinion of the direction of GM, Barra spearheaded a really successful turnaround for the company post-bankruptcy and diversified the business model to make it more profitable and less vulnerable during market downturns.
The same couldn’t be said for previous GM CEOs of the past few decades or even her current counterpart at Ford.
Less vulnerable during market downturns? The auto industry is in the midst of a tectonic shift from ICE to EVs., and the latest EV production numbers and market share indices relative to the Model Y suggests that turnaround that you speak of has been fleeting at best, with alarming warning signs ahead. High interest rates, a market that overall is declining (fewer overall sales) and collapsing overseas markets (Europe and China especially) suggests a tough ride ahead. It’s like that old Wayne Gretzky hockey analogy…skate to where the puck is going, and not where its been. The capitulation to Tesla over Supercharger access says to me that GM is many steps behind where the puck, being steered by Tesla, is going. Better that you stop looking backwards because this is an unforgiving business that demands “what have you done for me lately.”
I get what you’re saying but I think the shift to EVs is overstated and companies are wasting billions of dollars bringing out product that most of the market does not want or is ready for with an infrastructure that is woefully inadequate. I think the mantra of “All electric future” is myopic and a good set up for failure. There are other ways to reduce carbon emissions with EVs just being one of them.
Well the worlds most successful and popular automaker begs to differ from your opinion….Who’s that? Toyota! Deemed as the best for very good reasons….Toyota never drank the EV Koolaid and continues to lead in sales
Barra was promoted to CEO in 2015- well after GM’s bankruptcy.
“She is also the first female auto OEM CEO and has worked for equal pay and gender equity”…..says the $30 million dollar (a year) woman….
^^^
Look moron. Stop using my info to post stuff. Grow the F up.
Ok Boomer
Gross.
Mary Barra is not long for this world as the CEO of GM. This is the kind of award that once accepts when they see the writing on the wall and are attempting to lock-in a narrative prior of their industry accolades prior to retirement. The transition from ICE to so-called EV leadership is flailing at best. Months ago I said that she will exit as CEO with a gold plated golden handshake and leave. I see no reason to change my prediction. Building a viable EV business will be left to the next person because the current EV business is an unprofitable disaster, with production volumes so low as to not even be meaningful in terms of overall EV market share. Dealer inventory levels and high interest rates are creating a potential hellscape scenario. If Cybertruck takes off it will disrupt the entire industry, and push GM farther behind. I am not convinced that GM is producing products that folks want to buy, and with parity with EVs pretty much establishing itself, it could get ugly fast. Interesting times ahead!
you are out of your mind. this company hasn’t been this strong since the 60s
The huge market share proves it …….
You’re being lied to.
I travel extensively around my heavily populated area of west central Florida and see that GM has almost unanimously been replaced on the roads.
The mix of GM vehicles in the insane amount of traffic here is almost non-existant.
Just look around. You’ll see GM has given up massive gobs of market share. That’s NOT strength.
What is even more telling is that when Barra started with GM in 1985, probably 95 percent+ of all their vehicles were built in the US or Canada. Now all of their CUVs with the exception of the 4 Cadillacs, the Acadia, the Enclave, and Traverse (and the Bolt- for now) are now made in low-wage countries and imported here. I would venture to say that the transplants build a larger percentage of their crossovers in the US compared to GM. And don’t think that won’t be thrown up in their faces should they ever go back to the government for more aid.
You think so?
Berkshire Hathaway Sells Almost Half Of Its Stake In GM
BY JONATHAN LOPEZ— AUG 15, 2023
I told my Dad a couple of weeks ago, I expect GM by 2035 to be sold off or merged with Honda. Going all in on EVs is insane. Plus, a lot of markets just don’t like to be seen in a GM vehicle, including the US. Me, I’m proud to drive GM, but I am not interested in a 50k EV that will be thrown in the trash after 10 years.
I concur. It’s one thing to develop EVs. It’s quite another to compete in the market. I expect a new CEO will take over soon once most of GM’s first-gen EVs are released.
GM will not exist in its current form in 2035, much less 2030. Based upon the production and delivery volumes that we are seeing today, combined with the contracting ICE market and growing EV market, they are dead man walking. And Honda isn’t that much different. Woefully in denial and behind in EVs, its embarrassing. And this fixation with hydrogen is baffling. How many hydrogen cars have you seen? Where do you fill them up? Exactly. Baffling. The entire GM business model of dealerships and services is in the process of being destroyed purposely by Tesla. If you engineer your cars with the express intent that batteries can last 1M miles plus, that complexity and moving parts that can break have been engineered out, economies of scale and complexity/waste decreases by leaning everything out. GM is done already, but they just don’t know it yet. The direct model is the future. GM is not.
I think that going overboard on EVs will be the demise of many automakers.
Your comments clearly demonstrate a lack of self awareness around what is happening on a global scale to the automotive industry. The traditional ICE OEMs are facing an overall addressable market that is shrinking. In both the Chinese and European markets, which when taken together, ICE is dying due to changing consumer preferences as well as government incentives that are actively discouraging ICE sales, particularly in China, the world’s largest car market. (not the US). It is estimated that by 2025, EVs will comprise at minimum, 40%-50% of the total vehicle market in those geos. And in North America, OEMs are caught in a pincer play, where. But in many cases those OEMs are losing hand over fist with EVs, save for Tesla and perhaps BYD. Los a tricky balancing act is taking place. On the one hand, sales of ICE vehicles are needed to fund the smaller but faster growing EV segment which over time whose sales will continue to increase. Losing money is obviously not a long term sustainable business model, yet to ignore the EV segment would be disastrous long term for the OEMs. Going “overboard on EVs” given these marketplace dynamics is a poor choice of words. It is the future, and for anyone to ignore that is to do so at their own peril.
Difference between China and the US: China is opening several coal-fired power plants a month, the US is shutting theirs down. The hopes of solar and wind power to replace this lost power generation is fantasy. There simply will not be enough electricity to power the number of EVs the left wing is visualizing.
Furthermore it will be hard to pry ICE vehicles away from Americans. Electric is still not feasible for many Americans. If no ICE vehicle they desire is available, there’s a good chance they will keep the vehicle they have. Despite government pressure, automakers (smart ones at least) are not likely to drop the vehicles customers demand if they want to stay in business.
Well this Hall of Fame has inducted such “winners” as Roger Smith, Anne Stevens, Bob Eaton, Jim Farley, and Ralph Nadar,
I wonder what the criteria is for admission to the Automotive Hall of Fame?
I’m sure a large corporate donation is involved. Sme as the JD Power “awards”.
I also concur that switching to an ‘All Electric – All the time’ philosophy may ultimately lead to the lowest cost to manufacture vehicles for GM, but it is a future that I do not completely agree with for myself personally.
I own 2 battery electric (no gasoline) GM vehicles (Bolt EUV and LYRIQ), and an ‘old’ 2019 plug-in-hybrid VOLT.
Although the Volt is my oldest vehicle, I like the high-reliability of the ‘old fashioned’ 4 cylinder engine… Although the drive train is somewhat complicated – I never hear of anyone having the slightest trouble with it… A shame this type of technology was not used much elsewhere… I love it…. 70 miles range on a 15 kwh battery charge (about $2.00 at current rates) – and then 350 miles of gasoline driving. Not planning on replacing it anytime soon – but I’ll buy a similar vehicle with backup gasoline power to replace it when the time comes…
I just do not want to be totally dependent on just electricity…. To a certain extent, a gasoline vehicle means freedom since you can pay anonymous cash for the fuel. Seeing as gov’ts over time become much more controlling – like whether you can open your business during the COVID nonsense, there is nothing to say that they could not in the future say that ‘you are using too much electricity and you shouldn’t drive your electric vehicles so much… Or that you are driving to unapproved locations.
As far as other inductees go, Roger Smith – who developed the moniker ‘Call me ROGER !’ – until he found out you were not important enough to talk to and would drop a handshake mid shake if he found you were not important enough to talk to.
Pretty seedy club if you ask me…. More profit and low cost manufacture yes, as well as incompetent rollouts of new vehicles, DEAD 12 volt BATTERIES and forgetful infotainment systems all over the place (BLARES full volume at each startup). She’ll leave the next CEO holding the ‘bag’, no doubt.
It reeks of government/greenie interference and back-room pressure.
Yeah, being put in the same group as Roger Smith is not exactly a GM CEO badge of honor.
It would feel more legit if we had these cars in hand by now….get the EQ and Blazer out in volumes! And stop dragging it out for the next 2 years!
What a farce!
It’d be appropriate to induct her once GM’s EV’s have become successful and GM, under Mary’s leadership, were to help change the automotive landscape through the mass production of affordable EV’s for the masses, but to induct her just because she’s a woman and worked her way to the top, is in no way sufficient. Thus far, she hasn’t accomplished anything that could be considered earth shattering or even truly innovative. Good intentions and the best laid plans don’t mean squat.
IMO, Mary hasn’t earned the privilege of belonging in the company of Carl Opel or Preston Tucker, yet.
Upon reading the headline for this piece, the generally sexist posters here did not surprise me at all…sadly.
To this day, men, who have, and still do, oppress women around the world (think burkas), are STILL threatened anytime a woman is successful. As if THAT woman has personally taken something from THEM. Seriously? Could YOU run GM? Uh, no.
And they historically use gender as their excuse. When instead, they should stop for a moment and celebrate the successful child birth their own mother gave them.
SO STFU. And celebrate success instead of disparaging gender.
Always interesting to raise a valid point, and then see others anonymously disagree with a “thumbs down”. Because they are simply unable to actually defend their point in a narrative.
Waiting to see how long before the 3rd grade playground bully name calling begins?
Perhaps the thumbs downs are not what you say but how you say it?
It’s okay to be critical of a woman CEO just like what Waggoner and Smith endured.
Yet not one single story critical of Mary out there in the press. Instead, time to heap awards on her because of her ‘parts’, instead of real accomplishments.
But yeah, “sexist” because many disagree with her decision-making. Can’t be critical of what we see as a poor leader…..because she has the preferred ‘parts’.
It seems you could use some access to the preferred parts, you may find them quite comforting and stress reducing.
Dumb.
Defending her because she is a woman is just as myopic as those who criticize her unfairly because she is a woman.
Her actions are being judged (rightly or wrongly) not her gender.
Playing the victim card is the game of those unable to compete fairly and win.
What job did she do that markedly changed GM for the better? I’ll wait…….. I have zero issues with giving a deserving woman the praise they deserve. Nothing done by this specific woman “warrants praise”. She was hired because of checking a box, and she is being inducted because of “checking a box”. She has done nothing memorable with the company to deserve the praise she is getting. Call that sexist if you want, but this has nothing to do with “sexism” or “fragility”. You are the problem when you have to deflect to those terms because you don’t actually have anything else of note to pen her credit for.
As to the question, yes, yes I could run GM. I could easily make it very customer centric, make a better portfolio of cars that people will buy and regain significant chunks of lost market share. Leadership is about hiring the right people to make that happen, and I know most of those people to get it done.
Mary envisioned a world with Zero Emissions and Zero Crashes? Well pretty sure the way she ran GM into the ground that GM might possibly be headed for ZERO SALES! What a disaster this idiot has created! Should be in a “Hall of Shame!”
Shes’s teetering on unicorns farts and rainbow dreams territory…
What a bunch of man babies in this comment section. Mary Barra is the best CEO GM has had in a couple decades. She earned the position. Sad that successful women scare you so much.
Best gm CEO in a couple of decades? That’s not saying much…..
Just because Mary might be considered “better” than several of her most recent predecessors is no major accomplishment. She still hasn’t met the higher standard of being acknowledged as “good”.
Wow, so her main accomplishment is not bankrupting the company again…… Hella leadership…. The average “CEO” doesn’t bankrupt their companies, so your silly argument is meaningless.
Great. Maybe she can now focus on fixing the sh*t-show associated with the 2023 Colorado and Canyon midsize trucks.
Ordered mine in Dec 2022 like many others. Cancelled mid May after it sat at the factory for months (built Feb) and then was damaged by hail. At the same time I cancelled the first one, I ordered another one. That order has still not been accepted by GM. I will likely end up reordering again per process as a 2024 and paying what will surely be a higher price…. or I may just pick a different brand. Communication from GM has been near Zero to the public and to the dealers.
Lots of p*ssed off mid-size truck customers Mary Barra.
I suggest test driving some other brands. Many good trucks available without the GM nonsense.
And remember, Mary can do no wrong on this board.
Congratulations, Mary! You got this award because you’re smart, hardworking, and, no doubt, considerably brighter than those on this forum who complain and detract from your considerable accomplishments. When someone writes your biography, I’ll be first in line to buy.
I personally like to know what she has actually accomplished worthwhile? Being put into the automobile hall of fame means nothing to the average person. As I’ve said before let all those automotive companies buy into the EV sales job by the current administration and Toyota will thank them .
Congratulations on the induction into the automobile hall of fame. Having said that, I too would like to agree with a previous comment pertaining to the s*** show with the production and distribution of the Canyon and Colorado mid size trucks. I placed my order for an AT4 canyon in February. Sent an email to Ms. Barra in May . Heard from a nice person from GM that she would see what she could do to at least get an allocation for the truck to my GMC dealership in Forest Lake, Minnesota. Well, long story short, NO allocation, NO production of my order. Perhaps she can locate the 6 or 7 figure executive who is in charge of this production and offer that person an opportunity to remedy this situation immediately, or promote someone who can. That to me would be worthy of an induction into the hall of fame. Solving today’s problems while planning for success in the future.