The Report Card: Mary Barra Completes 1 Year As General Motors' CEO

General Motors Company GM CEO Mary Barra has completed one year as the company's boss. Due to the obstacles the company faced over the past year, Barra's first 12 months were never dull.

Bloomberg’s Laura Colby, who has also written an upcoming book on Barra, was recently discussed Barra’s performance as the CEO of GM during last year.

Related Link: General Motors CEO Mary Barra Sees Growing U.S. Vehicle Sales In 2015

The Year In Review

In considering Barra's influence since she became CEO, Colby described her entrance into the company and the company's reaction.

“It was an year of incredible highs and lows,” Colby said. “I mean, last year the auto show, around this time, she [Barra] had just been named and she was treated like a rockstar and then this whole crisis happened.”

“What Barry did was, she was able to turn the crisis around and use it to her advantage. She was trying to galvanize the employees in order to take on the company’s very famous bureaucracy, which was probably what was responsible for this whole crisis to begin with.”

GM's Changing Culture

Once more, Colby praised Barra's fortitude.

Barra was basically somebody who was groomed to be CEO from like her very first day,” Colby said. “She grew up in a General Motors family, her father was a GM dye maker for 40 years.”

“She understands the culture better than anybody and she decided; she used this crisis to speed up the bureaucracy at the company. She has changed almost all the top managers. There’s only three people out of the top 18 managers at General Motors who have been in their job for more than a year.”

Related Link: General Motors Plans $9 Billion In CapEx For 2015, Says It's On Track To Reach 2016 Goals

Full Steam Ahead

When asked if all these problems will divert  Barra’s focus from making great cars at GM, Colby replied, “Well, I don’t think that’s going to be the case, because she is somebody who has spent her entire career at the company. She has been in charge of product development. She knows about making cars. She knows what needs to be done.”

“This has been kind of a distraction, but it seems as a manager she has managed to turn this terrible circumstance to her advantage as a way of sort of galvanizing the troops, which nobody has been able to do before.”