GM’s global chief marketing officer retiring
Led messaging for planned pivot to all-electric future
Phoebe Wall Howard and Jamie L. LaReau
Deborah Wahl, global marketing chief at General Motors, has elected to retire effective March 31.
“We appreciate Deborah’s contributions since joining GM in 2018 and wish her well in her next chapter,” GM spokesman David Barnas said in a statement. “We will conduct an external search for a new Global Chief Marketing Officer.”
The news was announced
internally on
Monday and confirmed publicly on Tuesday, he said.
Wahl had been charged with messaging the company’s pivot from gasoline-powered vehicles to all-electric. GM has said it planned to bring 30 new EVs to market and have an allelectric lineup by 2035.
GM promoted Wahl at age 56 to the highprofile role in September 2019. Previously, she worked as chief marketing officer for Cadillac since March 2018, having been charged with “redefining Cadillac’s reputation and repositioning it for the future,” CEO Mary Barra said in a company memo at the time.
“By aligning marketing across GM under Deborah’s leadership, we will build stronger brands while ensuring more effective, efficient and agile customer engagement,” Barra wrote.
Wahl had experience as chief marketing officer at McDonald’s USA and the PulteGroup residential home construction company before going to Cadillac. But her experience in the automotive industry was vast, having held marketing roles at Chrysler, Lexus, Toyota, Lincoln-Mercury, Mazda and Ford of Brazil.
There was no mention of her professional news on her LinkedIn professional page on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Wahl is scheduled to be a keynote speaker at the Automotive Women’s Alliance on Thursday evening at the Somerset Inn in Troy.
Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid.