DETROIT, July 6 — Mary Barra, the chair and chief executive officer of General Motors, remains at the helm of America’s largest automaker more than twelve years after she took the corner office in January 2014. She is the first female CEO of a major global automaker, a fact the record shows. Barra, born in 1961 in Waterford, Michigan, began her career at GM at age 18 as a co-op student.
She earned a BSEE from Kettering University and an MBA from Stanford. That timeline—from a factory-floor co-op to the CEO suite—is the core of her professional biography.
Under her leadership, GM has committed $35 billion to electric and autonomous vehicles through 2025. The company’s stated goal: selling only zero-emission vehicles by 2035. According to the company’s public filings, GM’s electric vehicle lineup now includes the Chevrolet Bolt EV, launched in 2016; the GMC Hummer EV, introduced in 2022; the Cadillac Lyriq, which arrived in 2023; and the Silverado EV, which hit the market in 2024.
The automaker is building its battery ecosystem through the Ultium platform and joint ventures with LG Energy Solution under the name Ultium Cells. Barra has navigated GM through three major crises.
The 2014 ignition switch recall crisis erupted just months after she became CEO, eventually leading to congressional hearings and settlements with victims’ families. In 2019, she faced a strike by the United Auto Workers union that halted production across the country. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced GM to shutter plants and later pivot to ventilator production.
She serves on the board of Disney and is a member of the Business Roundtable, the Washington-based lobbying group of chief executives. On the timeline, Barra’s tenure now stretches across a period of profound transition for the auto industry. GM is spending heavily on electrification while still generating the bulk of its revenue from internal-combustion pickup trucks and SUVs.
The question facing investors and analysts is whether the $35 billion bet will pay off before the 2035 zero-emission deadline the company has set for itself. What to watch next: GM’s ability to scale battery production through its Ultium Cells joint ventures, and whether consumer demand for EVs continues to grow at a pace that justifies the company’s massive capital outlay.
