Driven by Global Product Development Leader Doug Parks‘ retirement, GM executives Ken Morris, Josh Tavel, Rory Harvey and Marissa West have been appointed to new leadership roles within the Detroit-based automaker.
This realignment is intended to streamline The General’s product development team and allow for faster implementation of new vehicle and technology programs as well as the acceleration of GM’s go-to-market strategies.
Doug Parks
“We’ve spent years preparing GM to transition to an all-electric future, and Doug’s leadership has been pivotal. We are grateful for his many contributions to GM’s success,” General Motors Chair and CEO Mary Barra claimed in a prepared statement. “The changes we are announcing today will continue to drive technical excellence and deliver groundbreaking vehicles to our customers around the world.”
Ken Morris
Josh Tavel
Rory Harvey
Marissa West
In regard to the specifics of each promotion, the details are as follows:
- Global Vehicle and Propulsion Vice President Ken Morris has been promoted to Vice President of Product Programs, Product Safety and Motorsports. Morris will retain his current responsibilities and add global product safety, launch excellence and motorsports product development.
- Customer Care and Aftersales Global Vice President Josh Tavel has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Energy Storage and Propulsion, R&D, and Manufacturing Engineering. Tavel will work with battery development and manufacturing engineering.
- GM North America Executive Vice President and President Rory Harvey has been appointed to Vice President and President of Global Markets. Harvey will work with global regional teams.
- GM Canada President and Managing Director Marissa West has been appointed to Senior Vice President and President of Global Markets leadership team. West will work with and report to Rory Harvey.
It’s worth noting that these leadership changes will go into effect on January 2nd, 2024.
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Comments
This is why prices keep going up. They need more money to pay useless executives. Spread the wealth Mary! Car prices aren’t already insane. Should be down sizing executives not hiring more.
You have no idea. Since Mike Abbott has been hired as Executive VP of Software he’s hired 7 additional people on top of the 3 executives that were already there. All of the new hires live outside of Michigan or near any GM facility. One of the Vice Presidents has never owned a car. I guess running a company virtually isn’t that hard. Makes me wonder why they get paid so much money.
“We’ve spent years preparing GM to transition to an all-electric future”
In other words, they’ve spent years preparing gm to fail and now they add more brilliant execs to screw it up more.
It always seems when the General shuffles execs they’re facing unexpected headwinds. They can’t shove EV’s down peoples throats when their own surveys show only 25% of customers want one.
Attention Government Motors: Where have all the car guys gone? Seriously, one of these individuals (correct pronoun) doesn’t own a vehicle? WTF? Can’t comprehend what this company is going to look like going into the end of this decade. Won’t be necessary to have car/shows just appliance stores. Oh well just another old school dudes opinion.
Nepotism at its finest.
Paybacks to add more unnecessary overhead.
Give those four a job on the line. We can use help there. Not looking to fill desks at the ren cen.
Mary has to go.
When John Smale crammed “Brand Management” down GM’s throat, as Board Chair, that started the bloated corporate environment which started many expensive “overhead” things in GM.
Every time a long-time manager retires, it is an opportunity to re-shuffle things as current upper management sees fit. Increased numbers of “big titles” that allegedly are worth more money. “Money” determined by “responsibilities” than real results, it seems. Not that the new people can’t do things better, just that they need to be paid for producing things for good results.
GM has not slowed-town on ICE products, nor has Ford. ICE light-duty pickups and electric sedans will be where the market futures are. As pickup trucks and Suburbans will be those ICE vehicles that can work in all parts of the world, with EVs being mostly in the larger metro areas. ICE vehicles will be with us for the next 50+ years, one way or another.
GM needs to start building $20K MSRP vehicles again. The popularity of the Ford Maverick proved that. How many years ago? Not everybody needs a vehicle that costs $80K with leather and can support 12 Bluetooth devices in a 6-passenger vehicle, or which 1 of those passengers is the driver. But those $80K+ vehicles generate lots of corporate profits, obviously.
” Josh Tavel has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Energy Storage and Propulsion, R&D, and Manufacturing Engineering. Tavel will work with battery development and manufacturing engineering”.
There couldn’t be a better choice for this position. Well done.
Another GM philosophy was Dr. Demmings creation of Statistical Process Control (S.P.C.) At the time in the late 80s, early 90s I thought it was a load of horse s$&t. But I see it’s alive and well, except the “Vital Few” now is the upper management gravy train and the “Trivial Many” are the workers, customers and business practices.
Ken Morris,
I hope you and GM do a better job than has been done from 2020-2023. You need to fix the issues first before moving forward. I have owned GM products my entire life, I am on my 6th GM SUV. I have always loved them, until about a month ago when my SUV and GM completely failed me and my family. We built out a 2023 GMC Yukon Denali Ultimate and I have had it for 1 year. We were driving from NC to FL and in S. GA while going 80 MPH on I-95 my car completely shut down. I suddenly could not accelerate, I could only steer and brake. I looked down and it was in Neutral. I could not change gears so had to slowly coast to the side when it stopped on an overpass. This happened at 11:30 at night. We are a young family of 5 with 3 girls; ages are 12, 11, and 8. The girls and myself were terrified. I couldn’t stop looking out my side view mirror hoping I didn’t see anyone swerving or getting too close that could hit us and knock us off the overpass. Every time a large vehicle went over the overpass and our car shook my 8 year old cried out of complete fear. We called On-Star immediately but, long story short, after being on the phone with them for 3 1/2 hours they let us know their supervisor told them they had to get off the phone with us and that there was nothing else they could do. They tried to get us a tow truck…they failed. Then they tried to get us a lyft to get our family safe…they failed. GM and everyone involved failed us. We got off the phone with them around 3:00 am, while still sitting in our car on the overpass. Finally we took things into our own hands, we had a tow truck en route to get my broken 2023 Yukon Denali Ultimate within 20 minutes and we called the police to get us to safety. My engine had completely seized up on a GM SUV that was only a year old and we had to get a brand new engine. A month and a half later I finally just got my car back but not completely fixed. GM told me they would no longer pay for a loaner because my car was “drivable”. I am still waiting on parts to make my SUV right but I don’t know if it will ever be right because GM is using cheap parts which is causing this issue all over the country. After this happened to us we looked into it and found posts everywhere with the same story more than we would like to see. It’s sad and infuriating at the same time and this should be a recall situation at best. GM and Ken Morris…what is it going to take before you fix this issue? Our scenario was awful, but it could have been so much worse.