Meg Whitman, former HP executive Mark Tatum, NBA COO, joins General Motors board

DETROIT – General Motors adds former Hewlett Packard chief executive Meg Whitman and National Basketball Association chief operating officer Mark Tatum to its board with immediate effect.

The election comes at a crucial time for the automaker, which plans to move to a full range of electric vehicles by 2035. It began last year with GM announcing plans to release 30 new electric vehicles globally by 2025. under a $ 27 billion investment in electricity and stand-alone. vehicles during that time.

They bring GM’s board of directors to 13 members, 12 of whom are independent directors. GM CEO and President Mary Barra is the company’s sole representative on the board.

“Our diverse board of directors is a competitive advantage for GM as we work to provide a better, safer and more sustainable world,” Barra said in a statement Thursday. “Mark and Meg will bring unique experiences to the board, especially in technology, brand building and customer experience, which will help us create value for GM shareholders and other stakeholders now and in the future.”

Whitman, 64, is well-known in Silicon Valley and technology circles. Most recently, she was the president of the short-lived streaming platform Quibi. He led HPE from 2015 to 2018, Hewlett-Packard Co. from 2011 to 2015 and eBay from 1998 to 2008. She is known for transforming eBay and splitting Hewlett-Packard into two companies.

“I have tremendous respect for the commitments that Mary and her team make and the culture that they have built,” Whitman said in a statement. “GM’s growth strategy has all the elements of a startup, but with a much larger scale, millions of customers and a strong core business. This makes it a very exciting time to join the board.”

Tatum, 51, was named COO and deputy commissioner of the NBA in 2014. He is responsible for the NBA’s global business operations.

“GM is changing a 100-year-old business model and bringing together thousands of people and billions of dollars to drive solutions that matter to the environment, communities, companies and investors,” he said in a statement. Joining the board, he said “it’s an honor and I look forward to working with the GM team and my fellow executives to make this happen.”

Whitman and Tatum join GM’s already diverse board under Barra. Of the 13 directors, seven are women, one is Hispanic, one is African-American and another is Asian / African-American. The carmaker became the first major industrial corporation, with a uniform gender division on its board, followed by a majority of women in 2019.

The board will run for election at the company’s June 14 annual shareholders’ meeting.