Chapter Eight: The Revolving Door At G.M. Finally Stops
Once the most powerful job in America, it became a hot potato in bankruptcy
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In January, Mary Barra will celebrate 10 years as chief executive of General Motors. Her tenure does not set any kind of a record - G.M.’s first chief executive, Alfred P. Sloan, stayed in office twice as long. But when she took the job in 2014, the odds then were that she would barely be there long enough to get fresh business cards.
From 2009 through 2014, G.M. went through five chief executives. Two company-bred leaders - Rick Wagoner and Fritz Henderson - were both gone by the end of 2009.
A pair of outsiders then led the company whose chief executive’s position was once the most important business job in the country. That is no longer the case, and G.M. is headed into a far different future than its previous leaders might have imagined.