For 10-year GM CEO Mary Barra, 2024 is about change and crisis

DETROIT — Monday marks 10 years of Mary Barra’s tenure as CEO of General Motors, ushering in a crucial year for the Detroit automaker and for her legacy.

Over the past decade, Barra has been a dynamic executive, guiding the company through high-profile crises as the first female leader of a major automaker. Under her stewardship, GM has seen record profits, cultural changes and major achievements, including beating Wall Street earnings forecasts in 34 of the last 35 quarters, according to FactSet.

She’s regularly ranked as one of the most powerful business leaders in the world, with former and current executives describing her as a “visionary” and “inclusive” leader who has always remained focused on the task at hand.

That task, for much of Barra’s time at GM, has been to push the envelope and transform the largest U.S. automaker for sustained success. But her main business plans of late have failed to meet internal or external expectations, including her own.

Initiatives involving electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles have come under pressure, with EV rollout and demand slower than expected and GM majority-owned Cruise in crisis. The EV and AV businesses, along with emerging software initiatives, were major parts of lofty financial targets earmarked for 2025 and 2030.

GM says it can still achieve its goals — among them to double revenue by 2030 — by shifting focus, but it’s yet to detail how, without the help of its stated growth drivers.

“I always thought the EV and AV strategies were awfully ambitious and were more to show Wall Street that they were becoming a ‘tech company’ more than an auto company, trying to imitate Tesla too much in many ways,” said Michelle Krebs, an executive analyst with Cox Automotive, who previously covered GM as a reporter starting in the 1980s.

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