Meg Whitman, Quibi’s chief executive, speaks during a keynote address by Quibi at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada, on January 8, 2020.
Steve Marcus | Reuters
DETROIT – General Motors adds former Hewlett Packard executive Meg Whitman and National Basketball Association chief operating officer Mark Tatum to its board with immediate effect.
The election comes at a crucial time for the automaker, which plans to move to a line of all-electric vehicles by 2035. This began last year with GM announcing plans to launch 30 new electric vehicles by 2025. with a $ 27 billion investment in electricity and autonomy. vehicles during this time period.
They lead GM’s board of directors to 13 members, 12 of whom are independent directors. GM CEO and President Mary Barra is the company’s sole 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,” Barra said in a statement Thursday. “Mark and Meg will bring unique experiences to the board, especially in technology, branding and customer experience that will help us build value for GM’s shareholders and other stakeholders now and in the future.”
Whitman, 64, is well known in Silicon Valley and tech circles. She was recently president of the short transmission platform Quibi. He led HPE from 2015 to 2018, Hewlett-Packard Co. from 2011 to 2015 and eBay from 1998 to 2008. She is known for flipping eBay and splitting Hewlett-Packard into two companies.
“I have tremendous respect for the commitments that Mary and her team are making and the culture that they have been 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. This makes it a very exciting time to join the board.”
Tatum, 51, was named COO and NBA deputy commissioner 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 more than 100-year-old business model and brings together thousands of people and billions of dollars to drive solutions that matter to the environment, communities, businesses and investors,” it said in a statement. Joining the board, he said “it’s an honor and I look forward to working with the GM team and my fellow executives to achieve this.”
Whitman and Tatum join GM’s already diverse board under Barra. Of the 13 directors, seven are women, one is Hispanic, one is African American and another is Asian / African American. The automaker became the first major industrial corporation with a uniform gender division on the board, followed by most women in 2019.
The board will run in the election at the company’s annual shareholders ’meeting on June 14th.