GM’s software team faces major leadership shakeup
▼ Summary
– General Motors has lost three senior software executives in the past month as part of a restructuring effort to consolidate its technology businesses.
– The departed executives include Baris Cetinok, Dave Richardson, and Barak Turovsky, all of whom had extensive tech backgrounds from companies like Apple and Google.
– This reorganization is led by Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson, who oversees vehicle development, engineering, battery, and software teams to integrate hardware, software, and services.
– The restructuring aims to eliminate silos and unify hardware and software engineering, AI, and global product into a single organization.
– GM is hiring new talent, including Cristian Mori as head of robotics and Behrad Toghi as AI lead, to support the integrated approach under Anderson’s leadership.
General Motors is undergoing a significant transformation of its software leadership team, with three senior executives departing in the last month. This shakeup coincides with the company’s strategic move to consolidate its various technology units into a single, cohesive organization under the direction of its new chief product officer.
Baris Cetinok, who held the position of senior vice president for software and services product management, will leave the company on December 12. His exit follows the recent departures of two other key figures: Dave Richardson, senior vice president of software and services engineering, and Barak Turovsky, who was appointed as the head of artificial intelligence just this past March. Both Cetinok and Richardson joined GM in 2023, bringing with them extensive backgrounds from prominent technology firms such as Apple and Google.
These leadership changes occur several months after GM created a new chief product officer role and appointed Sterling Anderson to fill it. Anderson, an autonomous vehicle industry veteran who reports directly to GM President Mark Reuss, now has direct oversight of nearly all vehicle development departments. His responsibilities encompass vehicle and manufacturing engineering, battery technology, and the software and services product management teams. The core objective of this new position is to manage the complete lifecycle of GM’s product portfolio, ensuring a unified approach to hardware, software, services, and user experience.
The executive departures are a direct result of a broader internal restructuring designed to break down operational silos. The goal is to create a more integrated system for developing and deploying software across GM’s entire lineup of cars, trucks, and SUVs. Rather than maintaining separate teams with overlapping functions, the new plan integrates hardware and software engineering, artificial intelligence capabilities, and global product development into one streamlined organization.
As Anderson reconfigures the leadership structure, he is also actively recruiting new talent. Cristian Mori, whose recent career includes roles at Symbiotic, Rivian, and Boston Dynamics, has been hired for a newly created position to lead robotics initiatives. While GM already employs manufacturing engineers who work on automation, this marks the first time the company has established a dedicated chief robotics role, which will operate within Anderson’s organization.
Further bolstering its expertise, GM appointed Behrad Toghi, a former Apple employee, as its new AI lead in October. The company also brought on Rashed Haq as vice president of autonomous vehicles. Haq brings five years of experience from Cruise, the self-driving vehicle company that GM acquired and subsequently shut down, where he served as the head of AI and robotics.
(Source: TechCrunch)
