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
will reduce the impact of plan changes on affected individuals.
While our 'pay-for-performance' executive compensation system is already structured to significantly reduce total compensation when our business performance and stock price are underperforming, we all agreed that this is the right step to take at this time.
Today we are announcing a significant update on our plan to address our health-care burden, which is the cornerstone of our efforts to reduce structural costs by a $5 billion (US) run rate by the end next year.
We are confronting a dramatic change in our industry and in the global competitive environment, and that requires us to look for additional ways to reduce financial risk and improve our competitiveness for the long term.
We have decided to substantially alter the pension benefits for current U.S. salaried employees so that we can provide a competitive and fair benefit but also reduce the financial risks to GM.
In order to improve financial results in 2006 and 2007, we are moving quickly to implement several important actions that will address these weaknesses in North America. And we have a good line of sight on the steps we need to take to further reduce structural costs on a global basis that will position GM for long-term success.
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.
I think we'll probably pass Toyota in the U.S. on the workers-per-vehicle metric.
Jerry brings years of business experience and knowledge of the automotive industry to the GM board. We are pleased to welcome him to our Board.
I remember very clearly at the first budget review having a pretty direct conversation with the head of manufacturing... We began to get huge improvements in productivity and responsiveness. I got a chance to see that firsthand.
Over the last nine months we have been aggressively implementing our North American turnaround plan.
Our financial performance continues to be quite disappointing,
Our fate is going to be determined in the next three to five years on getting this business in the U.S. turned around and profitable,
Overall economic growth in Europe hasn't been robust and the car market hasn't been robust,