Rick Wagoner
George Richard "Rick" Wagoner, Jr. ( born February 9, 1953 Wilmington ) was from May 2003 to March 2009 Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer since June 2000 by General Motors.
Life and career
Wagoner grew up in Richmond and graduated from the local John Randolph Tucker High School. He received in 1975 a Bachelor in Economics from Duke University and an MBA in 1977 from Harvard Business School.
After his Harvard degree, he began his career at General Motors as an analyst in the finance department. In 1981, he became Chief Financial Officer of the Brazilian General Motors subsidiary, and later manager of this business.
In 1992 he was appointed CFO in 1994 as Executive Vice President and President of North American operations, on 1 June 2000, President and CEO and Chairman on 1 May 2003.
The operational improvements, contributing to their achievement Wagoner in the decade since the beginning of his career as CFO, showed itself in the form of the leadership of General Motors in the U.S. market. After $ 30 billion General Motors lost in the early 1990s during a single year, forced Wagoner and Chairman Roger Smith, General Motors back to the roots, to correct errors of management the past 30 years ..
Against the background of poor financial results Wagoner took over in April 2005, the personal control of the North American car business. Beginning of June 2005 Wagoner announced that GM close several plants in the United States and by 2008 25,000 employee is laid off (17% of the workforce). These cuts reduced the production capacity of one million GM cars and trucks (from 6 million to 5 million).
In an interview Rick Wagoner said that the setting of the development program for the EV1 electric car, and the associated budget cut for the hybrid program was the worst decision that was taken during his tenure. It has not changed the profitability, but rather the image. The effect was that GM was not seen as a technology leader, but in a time of increased demand for low-emission vehicles as a company that has little interest indicates innovation, which led to the conclusion that GM did not recognize important trends under Wagoner's leadership.
End of 2008, Rick Wagoner met with the CEOs of Ford ( Alan Mulally ) and Chrysler (Robert Nardelli ) before a committee of the U.S. Senate to ask the U.S. government to avert the impending insolvency rescue money. They were due to misguided model policy, criticizing years of lobbying against stricter consumption guidelines ( U.S. CAFE legislation) and the arrival violently with their own corporate jets.
End of March 2009 joined the GM CEO back pressure from the U.S. government with immediate effect after they had made the resignation of 56 -year-olds as a condition for continued state support. His successor as Chief Executive Officer and President, the previous Chief Operating Officer Frederick A. Henderson. As an interim solution for the GM Board Chair Kent Kresa was appointed, followed the July 2009 Edward E. " Ed" Whitacre Jr., after GM through the bankruptcy process within 40 days.
Also in July 2009, GM announced that Wagoner will receive a severance payment of more than 8.5 million dollars. For five years, Wagoner gets 1.7 million dollars a year, for life every year $ 74,000 thereafter.
Wagoner is a member of the board of Duke University, the Detroit Country Day School, the Board of Advisors Dean, Harvard Business School and the Board of Catalyst, a society for the promotion of women in business. He is a member of the Detroit Renaissance Executive Committee and the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board.