ROME – Women Power: for the first time in the history of a car manufacturer, women hold the majority of seats on the board of directors. It happens at GM where Meg Whitman and Mark Tatum have just been added to the bridge, bringing the total of female representation to 7 seats out of 13. Other than pink quotas: at this rate at General Motors we will have to talk about “blue quotas” …
Just to understand what we are talking about, suffice it to say that Ford, the second largest carmaker in the United States and main competitor GM, has three women on the board of directors of 12 people and has just appointed a fourth: Alexandra Ford English, daughter of the president. executive Bill Ford.
It should be remembered that the CEO of General Motors is a woman, Mary Barra, who explained the meaning of this strategy, stating that the diversified board of the automaker “is a competitive advantage for GM as we work to offer a better world, more safer and more sustainable “. Certainly, the desire for change is enormous because the largest US carmaker is engaged in a radical transformation of its products and business lines.
But who are the new entries on the board of directors? The first is Whitman, 64, a longtime tech executive and former Republican candidate for governor of California. Most recently, she was CEO of the multimedia startup Quibi. Prior to that, she had been CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Hewlett-Packard Co, and previously had been president and CEO of eBay. Not only that, Whitman is also the director of consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, whose 13-person board includes six women. Tatum, 51, is deputy commissioner and chief operating officer of the National Basketball Association. In short, as we said, Women Power.
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