The Navigator
Judgement in the fog, money, risk and the call others cannot make.
Mary Barra leads as The Navigator, steering General Motors through crosscurrents of technology, regulation, and competition with methodical pragmatism. She frames the EV transition as a multi-route journey rather than a binary bet, accepting that the climb from seven to one hundred percent electrification will pass through hybrid waypoints and demand flexible manufacturing capacity.
“I think it's a really good experience to have because, as I said, at the end of the day, it's talent. And how do you hire, recruit, retain? How do you set up people policies that encourage people to do their best?”
“Well, I think for a long time, General Motors owned Opal. And so Opel was our European brand. And I think that, you know, because we had that, we didn't introduce a lot of the other brands like Chevrolet, you know, we have some Cadillacs in Europe.”
“Oh, wow. Very interesting. I probably would, you know, I'm an electrical engineer, so I have in my life coded, so I understand that. But I probably would focus on data analytics because I think, you know, when you look at all the information that we now have available, how to leverage that information and turn it into something that you c…”
“I wouldn't say it was controversial, but it was uncommon. And so I think, you know, there were women before me that had laid a lot of the foundation, but I wasn't always assumed to be an engineer in the room.”
Bloomberg Surveillance: “Surveillance Special: GM CEO Mary Barra on Hybrids, EV Adoption”
LISTEN AT THE SOURCE ↗THE RECORD IS CHECKABLE