Will Bob Lutz be GM's Next Chief Executive Officer?

Bob Lutz at 2009 LA Auto Show

Will Bob Lutz be GM's Next Chief Executive Officer?

Posted Today 08:00 PM by Todd Lassa -Motor Trend Blog

DETROIT - It's not as outrageous as it sounds. Lutz, who has worked for General Motors, Ford, BMW, Chrysler and GM again will be 78 years old in February. As Chairman Ed Whitacre's right-hand-man, Lutz will help make sure Whitacre will pick the right man or woman to be GM's next CEO. If Whitacre is smart -- and he is -- there will be no more chairman/CEO, like Rick Wagoner, or CEO/president, like Fritz Henderson.

Mark Reuss' quick ascendancy at age 46 is a great, inspired choice. While Reuss is a second-generation GM lifer, he's a dyed-in-the-driving gloves car guy, and one who already is shaking up the traditional notions of how America's biggest automaker should be run.

Reuss easily could be CEO some day. Meanwhile, Whitacre has made it clear he wants quick changes, the type Alan Mulally has made at Ford Motor Company. While Mulally came from another type of manufacturing background with Boeing, he didn't understand how long product development takes in the auto industry. More importantly, Mulally changed the corporate culture at Ford, inspiring mid- and lower-level management to speak up at meetings, and to keep meetings short and to the point.

While he has been entrenched in the auto industry for most of the past 46 years, Lutz, too, is known for open, free-wheeling meetings in which car guys and other management get a chance to exchange ideas, rather than kiss up to the boss. Certainly, Whitacre has encountered that in his five months at GM.

At GM, Henderson, yet another in a long line of powerpoint addicts, is gone.

You'll remember that Wagoner asked Lutz, who was then heading up Exide batteries, to help find him a "car guy" to be his right-hand man. Lutz had just turned 70 when he recruited himself to the job, and the rest is history.

He has made many mistakes at GM, but they're the good kind. Yes, the Kappa platform probably cost GM far more money than it made, but it was GM's first attempt at a low-cost two-seat, four-cylinder sports car since before the Mazda Miata launch. Zeta and the Pontiac GTO predecessor fell short, as well, but I suspect both Lutz and Reuss see a North American-produced RWD Chevy Caprice and Buick Electra as viable, relatively low-volume products for the future, so long as GM can extract some mass out of the Zeta platform.

The good news is that GM has good, high-volume product that should offset the costs of Kappa and Zeta, and Lutz also deserves credit for seeing to it that cars like the Chevy Malibu, Buick LaCrosse and Cadillac CTS are world class.

So will Lutz become GM's next CEO? He's helping Whitacre on an "international search," but they're bound by salary restrictions so long as they've been propped up by U.S. Treasury funds. Lutz doesn't want to work for "peanuts" either. However, he's living quite comfortably already, and he's always been just a step below the top job, having been shut out by lesser minds at Chrysler in the '90s. He might have to sell another jet.

One advantage for GM is that at Lutz's age, being CEO should automatically be an "interim" position, one that would presumably bridge the company to an IPO and put it in a better position for an international search. And it would give Whitacre time to see whether guys like Reuss are truly capable of the kind of change he wants.

On the other hand, Lutz has displayed no signs of slowing down since he re-joined GM. As CEO, he could be in charge for another seven years.

Crazy idea maybe, but given how he recruited himself in 2002, I wouldn't bet against it.

Source: Motor Trend Blog 

riskyinstinct  : (Today 08:33 PM) 

It doesn't sound outrageous one single bit. BUT I think Lutz' s been, on purpose(of some sort I believe) staying away from such an assignment.

One Hell of a guy in PR & Product. He has been doing very good with BOLD messages as a new advertising theme and pointing his index finger towards more and more products to build up the core brands' product line. GM owes him and is corporate followers a gr8 deal for the 'inflection points' he has created for GM's post-bankruptcy sales and brands' public awareness. He wouldn't be willing to deal with the 'dull' finance issues and would never be a 'D.C.'s good boy' at GM. Lutz needs to breathe thru his own nose, if u will, and keep launching new products, organise challenges(the CTS-V challenge) that raises gr8 publicity over the net, get the media across- but never too far away- frequently to hear him out. He has to be in the kitchen with Ed Welburn and his team instead of board meetings... 

Conclusively, I think WE would lose him if he ever got to become the CEO. He tastes as good as ever at where he is.../MT