Not yet a month emerged from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, General Motors Co.'s promised upper-management transformation begins with - not much in the way of transformation.

There's nobody new from outside the company, a few respected old hands are retiring and the five remaining seats on the "new" GM's board of directors have been filled, although not with anybody who would have been out of place on the "old" GM board.

Anyone searching for "mavericks" would instead do better to procure a supply of recycled Sarah Palin campaign posters - the most excitement to be found in the list of new GM executive appointments is the seeming formation of two potentially volatile factions, one charged with sales and the other ostensibly with marketing.

And the most one might say for "diversity" or different thinking from the five new appointees to the GM board is that two of them are women.

New Decision-Making Structure

At the same time it reshuffles executives, GM is restructuring its major decision-making bodies, eliminating the former Automotive Strategy Board and Automotive Product Board (categorized by some insiders as too stodgy and far removed from frontline product-development concerns) and replacing them with "a single, smaller executive committee."

This committee, GM says in a release, will speed day-to-day decision-making and be led by CEO Fritz Henderson. It is comprised of:

Bob Lutz, vice chairman, marketing and communications
Tom Stephens, vice chairman, global product development
Nick Reilly, executive vice president, GM International Operations
Ray Young, executive vice president, chief financial officer
Tim Lee, group vice president, global manufacturing and labor relations
John Smith, group vice president, corporate planning and alliances, and secretary of the executive committee
Mark LaNeve, vice president, U.S. sales
Bob Socia, vice president, global purchasing and supply chain

Of these, the titles of Socia, Smith, LaNeve, Lee, Reilly, Lutz and Stephens are new or relatively new.

Some GM's major executives who are retiring by the end of the year include:

Gary Cowger, group vice president for manufacturing and labor relations, whose role is being assumed by Tim Lee from above
Troy Clarke, group vice president and president, GM North America
Maureen Kempston Darkes, group vice president, GM LAAM
Michael Grimaldi, vice president and CEO of GM Daewoo

Sales Side Matters



GM is reassigning several key executives to new sales-and-marketing posts to align with a broad restructuring of North American and international sales and marketing structures - and this is where an intentional divide appears to be forming.

Reporting to vice president of U.S. sales LaNeve are:

Jim Bunnell, most recently executive director, sales support group, becomes general manager, sales operations
Steve Hill, most recently sales manager, premium channel, becomes general manager, retail sales support
Kurt McNeil, most recently general sales manager, Chevrolet sales, stays in this position
Ed Peper, most recently GM North America vice president, Chevrolet channel, becomes general sales manager, Cadillac sales

Reporting to vice chairman Lutz:

Brent Dewar, most recently GME vice president, sales, marketing, and aftersales, becomes vice president, global Chevrolet brand
Susan Docherty, most recently North America vice president, Buick-GMC channel, becomes general manager, Buick-GMC brands
Bryan Nesbitt, most recently North America vice president, design, becomes general manager, Cadillac brand
Jay Spenchian, most recently executive director, marketing strategy support group, continues in that position

New Board Members

GM filled the five remaining seats on its board that were allotted either to the U.S. Department of Treasury or the government of Canada due to their combined ownership of a majority of GM. Almost all are persons with the expected large-business or Wall Street background and connections.

The newly named board members are:

Carol Stephenson, dean of Ivey School of Business at University of Western Ontario and former member of the GM Canada advisory board
Daniel Akerson, managing director, The Carlyle Group
David Bonderman, co-founding partner, TPG
Robert Krebs, retired chairman and chief executive officer, Burlington Northern Santa Fe
Patricia Russo, former chief executive officer, Alcatel-Lucent

The Treasury Dept., which owns 60.8 percent of GM, named 10 of GM's 13 board of directors, including Chairman Ed Whitacre, and the Canadian government, which owns 11.7 percent of the company, named one.

The trustees for the United Auto Workers union retirement fund also had the right to choose one board member. The UAW trustees selected Steven Girsky, president of S.J. Girsky and Co., an experienced analyst and industry and union advisor. -- By Bill Visnic