General Motors welcomes new first female CEO

A beaming Barra poses between the Chevrolet Silverado and the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray that swept both the Truck of the Year and the Car of the Year award at the Detroit Auto Show in Michigan.

There couldn’t have been a better way to start her reign as one of the automobile world’s most powerful individuals: two prestigious trophies being awarded to popular Chevrolet vehicles as the best cars of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, a familiar backyard Mary Barra can truly call her own.

While the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray and Chevrolet Silverado basked in the glory of being crowned the NAIAS Car of the Year and Truck of the Year, Barra might have stolen a piece of the limelight with her highly-charged presence at the Cobo Center a couple of days before she was to take over as chief executive officer of General Motors.

As if the stars aligned especially for her on a such an eventful career-defining week, Barra wasted no chance in praising her team for the twin awards that might have just capped the resurrection from a deep slumber of an auto giant which, only a few years back, was wallowing in the depths of bankruptcy.

The Chevrolet Racing C7.R, the official racing version of the Corvette ZO6

“I’m really proud of the whole global product development team, starting with design through engineering and power train,” said Barra, who was followed by a swarm of reporters at the show venue. “They’ve worked really hard. They’ve sweated the details of each and every aspect of those vehicles.”

Ford was the last automaker to score a sweep of the awards chosen by a bunch of 48 respected motoring journalists in America through its Fusion midsize sedan and Transit Connect small commercial van in 2010. Also chosen as Car of the Year finalists were the 2014 Cadillac CTS and the 2014 Mazda3 while the 2014 Jeep Cherokee and 2014 Acura MDX were Truck of the Year finalists.

Electric excitement

While General Motors had a fair share of about 50 global reveals that were made during the press days of the NAIAS through its Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, Opel and Buick labels, nothing produced the kind of electric excitement that two Corvette editions set off.

The new Corvette Z06, scheduled for production in early 2015 with a new LT4 6.2-liter supercharged V-8 engine and an eight-speed automatic developed by GM, made a grand entrance into the show premises after a police-escorted caravan from GM’s Warren Tech Center accompanied by 50 Corvette Stingrays complete with a live a satellite feed to those waiting at the huge display area. First to hit the road, however, is the C7.R Corvette race car which will try to keep Chevrolet’s strong showing in motorsports in recent years.

And that kind of show-off should have reminded the herd of journalists—about 5,000 of them—of the attention befitting a rockstar given to Barra at the NAIAS even more.

At a dinner tendered for GM-invited journalists at the top of the 72-floor GM Renaissance Center, Barra said she is ready to face the challenges of her new role atop GM counting her 33 years of experience where rose from being just a mere co-op student in 1980 at the age of 18 then to various important positions and then CEO, the first female in the world to hold such a lofty position.

“We will focus on the right products, the right value and the right quality and continue to innovate. Hopefully, you will see some of the work we are doing with our infotainment sustain and where we’re headed with OnStar in some of our markets and ability to have Apps,” said Barra. “It is that type of continued innovations that I think will keep our product strong and provide value to our customers.”

They will be on the lookout for opportunities that will come along in many different countries in Asia because “there are a lot of opportunities—opportunities for growth, opportunities for new product segments.”

Stefan Jakoby, the newly appointed head of General Motors International Operations, said he feels that GM is all equipped to face the challenges of a great global competition.

On the move

“GM is a company on the move. They have made bold business decisions, they have a great leadership team, they allow foreigners into the executive committee which has never happened before. I think that this will allow a lot of opportunities into the company.”

He sees the entry of Barra as an inspiring development that will lead GM to a better direction with the goal of delivering the world’s best vehicles to customers banking on the company’s track record in innovation.

That is very evident in the the Corvette ZO6, a fit-for-the-street race car boasting of at least 625 horsepower, and other launches like the coupe version of the Cadillac ATS compact sedan, the GMC Canyon and its corporate sibling Colorado which is creating ripples in the Asian market with its technology and design.