After more than 20 years with General Motors Co., Marissa West has decided to leave her role as president of North America, the automaker confirmed Friday.
“GM is reducing the complexity of our organization to better integrate Global Markets, move faster, and serve customers around the world,” said Kevin Kelly, senior director of GM Corporate News Relations, in an emailed statement to Automotive Dive. “The structural changes we are making will help modernize our end-to-end customer experience and create growth opportunities across our products and services.”
West, who formerly led GM Canada, joined the company’s senior leadership team on Jan. 2 as the top executive over its most profitable region. In her two-decade career, she held multiple engineering roles at GM, including executive chief engineer for the automaker’s global mid-size truck and medium-duty truck programs.
“We are grateful for all of her contributions and wish her the best in her next chapter,” Kelly said in the statement.
Rory Harvey, EVP and president of GM Global Markets — which oversees GM North America, GM International and GM China — will take over West’s day-to-day responsibilities, effective immediately.
In addition to West’s departure, GM announced two other executive changes, effective Sept. 1:
- Duncan Aldred, global vice president of Buick and GMC, will assume the new role of VP of commercial growth strategies and operations, reporting to Harvey.
- Jaclyn McQuaid, president of GM Europe, will become global vice president of Buick and GMC.
GM’s operations in North America were previously led by Steve Carlisle, who retired last year after 41 years with the automaker.
