Quibi CEO Meg Whitman speaks during a Quibi keynote address at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 8, 2020.
Steve Marcus | Reuters
DETROIT – General Motors is adding former Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman and Chief Operating Officer Mark Tatum of the National Basketball Association to its board with immediate effect.
The elections come at a crucial time for the automaker, which plans to move to a full electric vehicle range by 2035. vehicles during that time frame.
They bring GM’s board to 13 members, 12 of whom are independent directors. GM CEO and Chairman Mary Barra is the company’s sole representative on its board of directors.
“Our diverse Board of Directors is a competitive advantage for GM as we work towards 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, that will help us create value for shareholders and other GM stakeholders now and in the future.”
Whitman, 64, is well known in Silicon Valley and tech circles. She recently chaired the short-lived streaming platform Quibi. She led HPE from 2015 to 2018, Hewlett-Packard Co. from 2011 to 2015 and eBay from 1998 to 2008. She is known for changing eBay and splitting Hewlett-Packard into two companies.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for the commitments made by Mary and her team and the culture they have built,” Whitman said in a release. “GM’s growth strategy has all the elements of a startup, but with much larger scale, millions of customers and a strong underlying business. This makes it a very exciting time to join the board of directors.”
Tatum, 51, was appointed COO and deputy commissioner of the NBA in 2014. He is responsible for the NBA’s global operations.
NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum.
Jesse D. Garrabrant | NBAE | Getty Images
“GM is changing a more than 100-year-old business model, bringing together thousands of people and billions of dollars to find solutions that matter to the environment, communities, businesses and investors,” he said in a statement. He joined the board and said, “It is an honor and I look forward to working with the GM team and my fellow drivers to make this happen.”
Whitman and Tatum add to GM’s already diverse governance under Barra. Seven of the 13 directors are women, one is Hispanic, one is African American and another is Asian / African American. The automaker became the first major industrial company to have an even gender distribution on the board, followed by a majority of female drivers in 2019.
The board stands for election at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 14.