I first met (ex) chairman and CEO of General Motors Rick Wagoner at the 1999 Detroit Motor Show, just after he’d been appointed GM president. Jac Nasser had recently been made CEO of Ford. I interviewed both ‘new boys’ at the show and the contrast could not have been greater.
Wagoner was unassuming, deeply courteous, slow-talking: the quiet American. Nasser was the brash little Lebanese Australian, all lip and swagger. Jac had much to be confident about: Ford had recently delivered record profits and, in Europe at any rate, they were also starting to build their reputation for making seriously good cars (the Focus had just been made European Car of the Year).
If you were a betting man, it was obvious who you’d back for a long stint at the summit of the US auto industry. Jac was then the world’s most celebrated car boss. Instead, it was Nasser who first got the chop, sacked by chairman and family scion Bill Ford barely two years after strutting his stuff at Detroit.
Wagoner soldiered on for another decade. At least he had the distinction of being the first industry leader sacked by America’s first black president.
Just as most political careers end in failure, so do the careers of most high profile auto company bosses. ‘Red Ink Rick’s’ tenure saw GM’s market capitalisation slashed by 95%. Were it not for government bailouts, GM would be broke. They still may go bankrupt. There’s no hiding from that failure.
Wagoner and the EV1 mistake
Rick Wagoner was also instrumental in killing the EV1 electric car programme (he once told me that was his worst managerial mistake) and he allowed GM cars to stagnate as he (like his American Ford counterparts) foolishly assumed that the SUV gravy train would keep on rollin’. He was no product visionary. Recognising as much, he recruited Bob Lutz as his ‘car tsar’. Lutz, sharply dressed, spendthrift and outspoken, was the polar opposite of unpretentious ‘Call Me Rick’ Wagoner. But Lutz, unlike Wagoner, was also ‘a car guy’.
On the plus side, he backed the Chevrolet Volt, the new-age car that will likely leapfrog the Prius in petrol-electric technological prowess, and may well transform GM (assuming they stay in business long enough to make it).
Wagoner and GM’s world view
Wagoner’s other great legacy was his enthusiastic and prescient embracing of China. Under Wagoner, China became GM’s second biggest market. China, Wagoner hoped, would be GM’s saviour. When I last interviewed him in his office in downtown Detroit – over a muffin and a Starbucks latte – a big atlas of the world took pride of place on his desk. It was opened at China.
How ironic that the embodiment of American capitalism – champion of small government – was turning to communist China for salvation! How ironic that one of the leading captains of corporate America was sacked not by shareholder or boardroom revolt but, in very Chinese style, by government!
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