Liddell tipped to take driving seat at troubled GM

If Chris Liddell gets the top job at GM he would be the company's first foreign-born chief executive in its history. Photo / Brett Phibbs

New Zealander Chris Liddell is being widely tipped as a potential candidate for the top job at troubled American car manufacturer General Motors.

The Detroit-based carmaker said yesterday it had hired Liddell as its chief financial officer.

The 51-year-old Kiwi is the outgoing chief financial officer at Microsoft, and will be the first permanent top manager hired from outside GM since the car industry giant left bankruptcy protection in July.

He will report directly to interim chief executive Ed Whitacre, who took over on December 1. Whitacre says he wants to shake up GM's slow and rigid culture, and has pushed out top executives and promoted younger managers.

Liddell's appointment has led industry analysts to say he may be trying out to take the permanent chief executive position, perhaps as early as next year. The hiring also shows GM can attract top talent despite its uncertain future and pay limits imposed by its majority stockholder, the United States government.

Liddell replaces CFO Ray Young, who was transferred to GM's operations in China.

The former head of the US Treasury Department's car task force, Steven Rattner, wrote in Fortune magazine in October that he was shocked by the poor quality of financial controls at GM. He said it had "perhaps the weakest finance operation any of us had ever seen in a major company".

The CFO position is a key one at GM, which is operating as a new company that was created through the bankruptcy process.

Liddell will head a team that is creating a new accounting structure so the company can go public.

GM needs to complete a public float so the US Treasury can recover the US$50 billion ($71 billion) of taxpayer funds it awarded the carmaker. The government holds a 60 per cent stake in the company.

GM lost US$88 billion between 2004 and its June 1 bankruptcy filing.

Liddell, a former CFO at International Paper and chief executive of New Zealand's Carter Holt Harvey, brings from his tenure with Microsoft a reputation for holding down costs and stockpiling cash.

Microsoft said last month he was stepping down to pursue jobs above the level of CFO.

He is a likely candidate for the top position at GM and could be taking the CFO job to get to know the car business, management experts say.

The 68-year-old Whitacre, a former head of AT&T, has said he does not want the role permanently.

Yale School of Management professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld said it was hard to imagine Liddell leaving a strong global icon like Microsoft for an "eroded pillar of an old economy" without being dangled an opportunity to run it.

- REUTERS reported that Liddell earned just over US$3.5 million at Microsoft last year.

If he gets the top job Liddell would be the first foreign-born GM chief executive in the 101-year-old company's history, said John Heitmann, a professor at the University of Dayton.

Peter Misek, an analyst at Canaccord Adams, said Liddell was able to do what many executives could not at Microsoft: change a culture of limitless growth.

"Microsoft wasn't designed for expense containment."

Morningstar analyst Toan Tran said that being CFO at Microsoft would "seem like a breeze" compared with what Liddell had to do at GM.

- ADDITIONAL REPORTING: AGENCIES