Interim GM CEO Ed Whitacre is at it again. He’s made more changes at the top of the GM food chain by announcing that he would be replacing GM’s “Head of Government Relations” with two guys who have worked in a similar capacity for AT&T, the company that Whitacre used to run. These guys are lobbyists, for a company controlled by the government. Are we missing something?
This is yet another sign that Whitacre is grabbing the company by the scruff of the neck and will lead it, with force if necessary, to a culture change that many feel is needed. Whitacre and the board of directors did not feel that Fritz Henderson could make the sorts of changes that they wanted to make, so he was removed. Whitacre still claims that the process of finding a CEO could last an entire year before the right candidate is located.
So what happens when GM starts lobbying for stuff that the president is not interested in supporting? Overtly, nothing probably, but behind the scenes we can forsee large amounts of fireworks.
