General Motors Co. Chief Executive Fritz Henderson has resigned, the company announced Tuesday, marking the loss of its second CEO this year.
GM Chairman Ed Whitacre said in a brief statement that he will become interim CEO while a search is made for a permanent successor.
Whitacre said Henderson had done a remarkable job, but “we all agreed that some changes needed to be made going forward.”
Henderson became GM’s top executive in late March after the Obama administration asked CEO and Chairman Rick Wagoner to step down. Henderson worked with the U.S. government to take GM through bankruptcy, which it exited in July.
In a statement, the Obama administration said, “This decision was made by the board of directors alone. The administration was not involved in the decision.”
The Obama auto task force briefly considered ousting Henderson when Wagoner stepped down. But former task force chief Steven Rattner told the Bloomberg Washington Summit last month that finding a replacement for Henderson was considered too difficult at the time, with a new CEO search likely taking six months.
Henderson remained on as CEO as the automaker emerged from bankruptcy as a company whose majority owner is the U.S. government. The U.S. Treasury has pumped around $50 billion into GM to keep it alive.
Gerald Meyers, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Business, has known Whitacre for years. Meyers described him as a demanding boss who “takes no prisoners.”
Henderson, Meyers said, “didn’t stand a chance with Ed as his boss.”
On Nov. 13, Rattner explained the appointment of Henderson to CEO this way: “We felt that in that period of disruption, to find somebody new that we would have the confidence, that would be able to succeed, was very problematic and likely a six-month process at the minimum. And we liked Fritz, and we felt that Fritz had more energy and more drive. … He was being groomed to be CEO, and he deserved a chance.”
Whitacre and Henderson seemed to clash since the first board meeting in August. Whitacre has made public comments that have seemed contradictory to what Henderson’s plans for the future entailed.
The Whitacre-led board undid a deal to sell GM’s Opel division, put together under Henderson’s watch. Meanwhile, deals to sell the Saab and Saturn brands fell through, and unless buyers are found, those brands will be shuttered by year’s end. And a bid to sell Hummer to a Chinese manufacturer has been hobbled by regulatory questions.
Henderson, 51, has been with GM his entire career. The company’s language describing his resignation made plain that it decided he was not the executive to lead it forward.
“Based on the determination of the board and the pace of the change in the company, it was determined that it was best to initiate a change in direction,” spokesman Chris Preuss said.
GM has continued to lose market share since emerging from bankruptcy, but did announce this month that it intended to begin paying back next month $6.7 billion in loans it received from the U.S. government.
