General Motors
After Harvard, he joined GM as an analyst in the treasurer's office. In 1981, he became treasurer of GM's Brazil subsidiary and later served as managing director.
In 1992, he was named GM's chief financial officer, in 1994 he became executive vice president and/or president of North American Operations, and in 1998 he was named president and chief operating officer.
After GM lost $30 billion during a single three-year stretch in the early 1990s, Wagoner and Chairman John F. "Jack" Smith Jr. forced GM "back to basics" to battle "30 years of management mistakes" that left him with little room to maneuver.
Read more about this topic: Rick Wagoner
Famous quotes containing the words general and/or motors:
“You have lived longer than I have and perhaps may have formed a different judgment on better grounds; but my observations do not enable me to say I think integrity the characteristic of wealth. In general I believe the decisions of the people, in a body, will be more honest and more disinterested than those of wealthy men.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country’s ready to let go. You heard of that market crash in ‘29? I predicted that.... I was nursing a director of General Motors. Kidney ailment, they said; nerves, I said. Then I asked myself, “What’s General Motors got to be nervous about?” “Overproduction,” I says. “Collapse.””
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