Rick Wagoner
Rick Wagoner
George Richard "Rick" Wagoner, Jr.is an American businessman and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors. Wagoner resigned as Chairman and CEO at General Motors on March 29, 2009, at the request of the White House. The latter part of Wagoner's tenure as CEO of General Motors found him under heavy criticism as the market valuation of GM went down by more than 90% and the company lost more than $82 billion USD. This led to his being...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth9 February 1953
CountryUnited States of America
I don't think having me do both the jobs, the corporate job and the North American job, is the right long-term answer. But I think while we're in the midst of the turnaround, the value of the shortened lines of communication speaks for itself. And so we're going to stick with it for a while longer.
In '02 we had another good year in improving productivity in salaried work force. What we're trying to do is make this a regular mind set around here, ... You can't have an ounce of fat these days and meet the pricing and the investments and the profitability targets we're shooting for.
The first quarter represented an important milestone in GM and GM North America's turnaround.
The industry sales mix is shifting away from the larger, higher-profit vehicles, even pickups, ... reflects too much reliance on those products for profitability.
A lot of times, people will get down on the situation with the unions and with the UAW. But this wouldn't have worked without good engagement at the local level with the UAW. They understand that improving quality and productivity is important for their long-term success as well. It's been a real team sport.
You've got to have a consistent, gradual growth strategy, and I think some basics are going to be required,
All this improvement is great, but all that does is get us in the game to play for improvements that we need in the future, so that we can be aggressive in the marketplace.
The lower prices have given consumers a compelling reason to try our new vehicles, and it's working.
In his current assignment, Mike has led the team that has helped GM gain back market share in California. He's built strong relationships with dealers and employees in creating marketing initiatives, all of which should prove especially useful as we focus on additional key markets where we need to improve GM's performance.
I'm like Sergeant Schultz, I know nothing. We are trying to share ideas around the world. We don't just come up with a great idea in Brazil and ignore it in the rest of the world.