GM’s CFO Abandons Ship
General Motors said Thursday that Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell will leave a little more than a year after joining the U.S. automaker from software giant Microsoft.
Liddell, 52, will leave GM on April 1. He joined the company in January 2010 and saw it through its record initial public stock offering last November.
“I came to General Motors to be part of something great,” Liddell said in a statement. “My objective was to help rebuild this iconic company.”
Liddell left Microsoft, where he was CFO, in November 2009 to look for a bigger job. When he joined GM he was seen as a well-regarded outsider who could possibly succeed then-Chief Executive Ed Whitacre when he stepped aside.
Microsoft said when Liddell left that he was looking at opportunities to “expand his career beyond being a CFO.”
However, last August Dan Akerson, 62, was named CEO, immediately leading to industry speculation Liddell would eventually leave.
“The decision to leave was Chris’,” GM spokeswoman Lori Arpin said. “He came here to be CFO and with the company on proper footing, he decided that it was the right time personally and professionally to pursue other opportunities. He has not announced his future plans yet.”
Executives from outside industries are eager to try the auto business, figuring “I can’t do any worse than these guys.” They find out the hard way that it’s unique, with an intensely competitive global operating environment and customers with ever-higher demands. Success in software or telecommunications doesn’t always translate into an understanding of the issues facing Detroit.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42005626/
Leave a Reply