Quibi CEO Meg Whitman speaks during a Quibi opening speech at the 2020 CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, on January 8, 2020.
Steve Marcus | Reuters
DETROIT – General Motors is adding former Hewlett Packard executive Meg Whitman and National Basketball Association chief operating officer Mark Tatum to its board with immediate effect.
The elections come at a crucial time for the automaker, which plans to transition to a line of all-electric vehicles by 2035. This started last year with GM announcing plans to launch 30 new EVs globally by 2025 under a $ US investment. 27 billion in electric and autonomous vehicles during that period.
They bring the GM board to 13 members, 12 of whom are independent directors. GM CEO and President Mary Barra is the company’s only representative on the board.
“Our diverse Board of Directors is a competitive advantage for GM, as we work to deliver a better, safer and more sustainable world,” said Barra in a statement on Thursday. “Mark and Meg will bring unique experiences to the board, especially in technology, brand building and customer experience that will help us create value for GM shareholders and other stakeholders now and in the future.”
Whitman, 64, is well known in Silicon Valley and in technology circles. Recently, she was president of the short-lived streaming platform Quibi. She led HPE from 2015 to 2018, Hewlett-Packard Co. from 2011 to 2015 and eBay from 1998 to 2008. She is known for transforming eBay and dividing Hewlett-Packard into two companies.
“I have enormous respect for the commitments that Mary and her team are making and for the culture that they are building,” Whitman said in a statement. “GM’s growth strategy has all the elements of a startup, but with a much larger scale, millions of customers and a strong underlying business. That makes this a very exciting time to be on the board.”
Tatum, 51, was appointed COO and deputy commissioner of the NBA in 2014. He is responsible for the NBA’s global business operations.
NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum.
Jesse D. Garrabrant | NBAE | Getty Images
“GM is changing a business model for more than 100 years and mobilizing thousands of people and billions of dollars to drive solutions that matter to the environment, communities, businesses and investors,” he said in a statement. Joining the board, he said “it is an honor and I look forward to working with the GM team and my fellow directors to make this happen”.
Whitman and Tatum join GM’s already diversified board in Barra. Of the 13 directors, seven are women, one is Hispanic, one is African American and one is Asian / African American. The automaker became the first major industrial corporation with a uniform gender division on its board, followed by a majority of female directors in 2019.
The board will run for election at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 14.