Many publications have posted reflective pieces on women’s roles in the media, corporations etc. in the year 2013. Here is proof that we are moving on up and more women are in leadership positions. On Tuesday, General Motors promoted Mary Barra to serve as the new chief executive officer. This makes Barra the first female head of a major U.S. automaker.
She has climbed the ladder after 33 years at GM, first working on the floors, moving up from there. Barra will succeed current CEO Dan Akerson on January 15, the company said.
For more than two years before that, she was an executive VP focusing on international design, engineering, program management and quality. Earlier, she was vice president of global human resources. Barra started at GM when she was 18 as part of a cooperative education program.
She was paid $4.9 million in total compensation last year, according to corporate documents. That includes a salary of $750,000.
As reported by CNN Money, as the incoming CEO of a Fortune 500 company, Barra joins the ranks of 21 other female chief executives including Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo (PEP, Fortune 500), Marillyn Hewson of Lockheed Martin (LMT, Fortune 500), Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500), Virginia Rometty of IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) and Phebe Novakovic of General Dynamics (GD, Fortune 500).
Don’t miss LATF’s series on Women In Power and our interview with Barbara De Laere of L’Oreal Professionnel at www.latfthemagazine.com.
