DETROIT — In the first major shake-up of General Motors’ senior management since the company announced a wide-ranging recall in February, its chief spokesman and head Washington adviser, and its top human resources executive have left the company.þþSelim Bingol, G.M.’s senior vice president for global communications and public policy, was part of the inner circle of Mary T. Barra, the automaker’s chief executive, handling strategy and the public response to the recall of nearly 2.6 million cars. The company announced his departure on Monday, along with that of Melissa Howell, senior vice president for global human resources. It did not say whether Mr. Bingol or Ms. Howell had resigned or if they were dismissed.þþThe departures are the first major executive changes under Ms. Barra, who took over in January.þþGreg Martin, a company spokesman, said the departures were unrelated to the recall of Chevrolet Cobalts, Saturn Ions and other cars for defective ignition switches that are prone to turn off, shutting the engine and disabling the air bags. The company has linked the defect to 13 deaths.þþWhile Ms. Barra was expected to make management changes to reflect her strategic direction, the departures coincide with harsh criticism of how the company has handled the recalls.þþLawmakers have been particularly critical of Ms. Barra’s unwillingness to answer questions at congressional hearings on why G.M. waited more than a decade to address the deadly safety defect.þþFive senators wrote last week to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. asking the Justice Department to intervene in pending lawsuits against G.M. because of “deceptive and fraudulent concealment and other misconduct by G.M.”þþDaniel G. Hill, president of Ervin Hill Strategy, a communications and government relations firm in Washington, said that G.M. had provided “a kind of slow drip” of negative publicity over the last several weeks that had damaged its image. Sometimes this is unavoidable for a company, Mr. Hill said, “but in this case, it seemed avoidable.”þþMr. Bingol, a former communications executive at AT&T, was hired by G.M. in 2010 by Edward E. Whitacre Jr., who was appointed chairman of the automaker by President Obama’s auto task force and later became its chief executive.þþLast year, Mr. Bingol assumed responsibility for G.M.’s Washington office in addition to his duties as head of global communications.þþAfter handling the early public response to the recall on its own, G.M. looked outside for help this month, hiring Jeff Eller, a veteran of the Clinton administration, as a consultant.þþHe joined other outside advisers, including Kenneth Feinberg, a compensation specialist who is advising G.M. on the possibility of setting up a fund to pay victims, and Anton R. Valukas, a former United States attorney who is conducting an internal investigation for the company.þþThe company did not announce an immediate replacement for Mr. Bingol. It declined to make either Mr. Bingol or Ms. Howell available for comment.þþMs. Howell joined G.M. in 1990, and last year became its top human resources executive.þþBut questions about the company’s handling of personnel have become more pointed in recent weeks.þþAt the Senate hearing on April 2, Ms. Barra was criticized over the company’s failure to discipline employees involved in hiding the problems with the faulty ignition switch.þþThen last week, the company announced that Raymond DeGiorgio, the chief ignition engineer for small cars like the Cobalt, and Gary Altman, an engineering manager on the small-car program, had been placed on paid leave after early results of Mr. Valukas’s investigation.þþTo replace Ms. Howell, G.M. elevated John J. Quattrone, who had been in charge of personnel in the company’s product development and purchasing divisions under Ms. Barra before she became chief executive.þþBefore that, Mr. Quattrone, who joined the company in 1975, had held a number of positions in human resources and labor relations.þþ“John brings to the job a deep and rich breadth of experience across all levels of the enterprise,” Ms. Barra said in a statement. “This background is invaluable as we create lasting change that puts the customer at the center of how we work and how we measure ourselves going forward.”þþJessica Caldwell, senior analyst at Edmunds.com, called the personnel announcements symbolic of Ms. Barra’s intention to change the company’s culture.þþ“She’s been very adamant that the G.M. of today is not the G.M. of yesteryear, and she has to prove to that,” Ms. Caldwell said, even more in light of the ignition switch recall. “It’s a problem they’ve had for a while — the need to become less bureaucratic, quicker, more transparent post-bankruptcy.”þþMs. Barra has shown she is willing to cast aside employees, even executives with decades of experience. After an internal inquiry into G.M.’s operations in India last summer, for example, several executives, including the head of its global engine operations, were forced to leave the company for manipulating engine performance during government emissions testing. Ms. Barra had a role in the ouster, according to people briefed on the inquiry.þþOn Monday, Ms. Barra held out the prospect of more to come, in a blog post directed at employees. Announcing a program that encourages workers to report safety problems, she said managers would be held responsible to follow through on responding to the concerns.þþ“We also promise accountability from our senior leadership back to these employees that we will take action or close each issue in a timely fashion,” she said.
Source: NY Times
