The news that 51-year-old Mary Barra has been appointed as the first woman in the world to head a car company (General Motors in her case) is a surprise, not so much that it has happened because a woman at the helm of what is still amale-dominated industry has been brewing for a few years now, but that Ford didn't get there first.
Ford is known for promoting women. Indeed, almost 30 years ago they were the first car company to appoint a woman specifically to oversee the wants and needs of women customers in the showroom and had roving executives visiting outlets around the world including New Zealand to train sales men (and they are still invariably men) in the delicate art of persuading women to make the final purchase decision. And yet General Motors, known as a kind of lumbering giant where its own decisions can take aeons because of an all-pervading and archaic bureaucratic approach, has up and gazumpt its longtime Detroit rival. Who would have thought?
Ms Barra certainly has the creds. Her father was a die-maker with Pontiac for nearly 40
years. She studied electrical engineering at the General Motors Institute (now known as
Kettering University) to obtain a Bachelor of Science degree before receiving a GM
fellowship at Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1988 and a Masters degree in Business Administration in 1990. In that she represented the emerging academic trend of women studying both science and/ or engineering while adding business for good measure. So she knows how a car works and understands the industry.
In February 2011 she was appointed
Executive Vice President of Global Product
Development with responsibilities for design
and the global purchasing and design chain
and less than a year later Forbes magazine
listed her as the 41st most powerful woman
in the world. This new appointment, which
starts in January, will no doubt see her
move up that particular pecking order.
She can be found on the company's test
track putting cars through their paces and
she will need to be up to speed to improve
profits which see GM lagging behind Ford
and Toyota and she will need to literally
drive improvements in the company's
product lineup. In fact just hours after her
appointment was announced, GM pulled
the plug on manufacturing in Australia.
Ms Barra would certainly have played an
insider role in that decision.
So where is Ford in all of this gender equality?
Across the Atlantic is another American
woman who has just been appointed as
Chief Operating Officer of Ford Europe. Barb
Samardzich is the third person appointed as
COO of Ford of Europe in the past decade
and both her predecessors have moved into
top positions within the organization.
It's known that Ford earmarks top jobs for
those with corporate talent and like Mary
Barra over in Detroit, Barb Samardzich
has a background in engineering. She was
Vice President of product design before her
October appointment as COO. At a dinner to
accept the trophy in the Women'sWorld Car
of the Year in Bonn in November (the trophy
was made by KeriBlue in Kerikeri) she said
she was 'surprised' at her appointment.
'I didn't think it would happen so soon,'
she said 'but the fact it has happened
makes it tremendously exciting for women
in the industry.'
It does indeed but whether other car
companies take note remains to be seen.
It's hard to see any Japanese, Chinese or
Korean car companies appointing women
to executive positions let alone Chief
Executive, there just aren't any women in
senior enough positions at the moment
to progress that high. And the fact that
both Ford and Holden manufacturing will
cease in this part of the world means fewer
opportunities for women with the sort of
engineering credentials that currently
warrant them being given the chance.
If a woman is appointed to head up the
new-look Ford or Holden in Australia she
will likely have a business or accounting
degree, not a technical background.
Given the number of women in business
schools and universities and the fact their
numbers tend to outweigh men in these
categories, it may not happen overnight
but it's bound to happen sooner rather than
later. After all it's only 130 years or so since
Karl Benz invented the gasoline engine
and made the first gas powered car.That
became known as the Mercedez Benz
which was named, of course, after a woman.
A Time and Place for Women
By Sandy Myhre
Ford Europe chief operating officer Barb SamardzIch (second from left) accepts the
2013 Women'sWorld Car of the Year trophy from Maggie Barry (Scotland, left), Sandy
Myhre (Kerikeri, New Zealand), Marta Garcia Fernandez (Spain) and Sue Baker (UK).