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
We already have made some significant moves to improve our competitiveness in the long term. We need to do more - and we will.
We expect to see improved results in 2006 and further progress in 2007.
We are confronting a dramatic change in our industry and in the global competitive environment, and that requires us to look for additional ways to reduce financial risk and improve our competitiveness for the long term.
These bold initiatives are designed to immediately improve our competitiveness and position GM for long-term success and today's transition is a further step in that direction.
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.
In order to improve financial results in 2006 and 2007, we are moving quickly to implement several important actions that will address these weaknesses in North America. And we have a good line of sight on the steps we need to take to further reduce structural costs on a global basis that will position GM for long-term success.
Health costs in this country are out of control, ... This will significantly improve our overall cost competitiveness ... and will be critical to getting GM North America back to profitability as soon as possible.
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.
We don't always agree on stuff, but when it's time to blow the whistle and start the game, we're not still debating.
We're not interested in a bailout, but we would like a chance to play on a level playing field.
This transaction will allow us to preserve our business relationship, while further building up GM's already significant liquidity position during this critical phase of our turnaround.
We believe in fair exchange rates and Japan doesn't practice that. They have massive U.S. dollar reserves, and they use them to intervene regularly.
We believe in fair exchange rates and Japan doesn't practice that, ... They have massive U.S. dollar reserves, and they use them to intervene regularly.
What I've seen around the world is if the regulatory desires are combined with things that affect consumer behavior - such as in Europe, they tax gasoline very heavily - you do get people to move to very fuel efficient cars; trade off bigger vs. smaller cars.