Rick Wagoner
Rick Wagoner
George Richard "Rick" Wagoner, Jr.is an American businessman and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors. Wagoner resigned as Chairman and CEO at General Motors on March 29, 2009, at the request of the White House. The latter part of Wagoner's tenure as CEO of General Motors found him under heavy criticism as the market valuation of GM went down by more than 90% and the company lost more than $82 billion USD. This led to his being...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth9 February 1953
CountryUnited States of America
Rick Wagoner quotes about
There's been a consistency of approach and a consistency of execution. Moving to a common system and common metrics has really helped us.
There's days you smile and days you frown.
As we look at the responsibilities we have to a broad range of constituents, as we look at what we need to do to make the business successful, as we look at our businesses around the world, we think there are significant costs to bankruptcy. We don't think it's a good option.
The first quarter represented an important milestone in GM and GM North America's turnaround.
The industry sales mix is shifting away from the larger, higher-profit vehicles, even pickups, ... reflects too much reliance on those products for profitability.
A lot of times, people will get down on the situation with the unions and with the UAW. But this wouldn't have worked without good engagement at the local level with the UAW. They understand that improving quality and productivity is important for their long-term success as well. It's been a real team sport.
You've got to have a consistent, gradual growth strategy, and I think some basics are going to be required,
All this improvement is great, but all that does is get us in the game to play for improvements that we need in the future, so that we can be aggressive in the marketplace.
The lower prices have given consumers a compelling reason to try our new vehicles, and it's working.
I was willing to go just about anywhere in the U.S. for the best job - except New York City. Of course, I received a job offer from GM - in New York City.
If you laid out the worst-case scenario, it could get very difficult for everybody,
If you look at our production schedule, we think we ought to be able to grow our sales. We feel good about our product, but there's no reason to put a target out there when nobody else does, and we get beat up on it.
If you look from 1992 to 1997, we've really reduced the number of car models from more than 100 to about 81. Our strategy is to have the right number of products. Segment the brands better. There's a lot of work being done on the distribution side of the business. And the data's showing that our new products are doing a very decent job in the market.
Ford, as I understand it, had done away with the concept of regional management, and now they've re-introduced that in Europe, so it's kind of a two-way street.