Pesky Late Week Personnel Appointments
Living in the Washington, DC, area turns a person into a political news junky – or completely turns a person OFF to political news – or both. In the political news biz there is an expression called the “Friday news dump.” The Friday news dump is a way for individuals or organizations to offload news items that they hope will not receive a lot of attention, coming as they do on a Friday.
The Friday before Thanksgiving is an especially deep, dark Friday news dump. Any announcements of personnel changes on the Friday before Thanksgiving in the U.S. are guaranteed to get as little attention as is conceivably imaginable.
There are a variety of reasons for individuals and organizations to try to avoid attention when making announcements. Two announcements last week fall into the Friday news dump category (from Autonotive News):
- https://tinyurl.com/plf7uy3 - GM shuffles top execs for quality, purchasing, powertrain
- https://tinyurl.com/lcldxob - Fatigue-expert NHTSA nominee could mean more infotainment scrutiny
The first announcement follows the departure of Mary Chan as president of GM’s Global Connected Car division with the appointment of Alicia Boler-Davis as vice president for global connected consumer, while retaining her responsibilities as GM’s head of customer experience. Chan will be remembered for ushering in LTE connectivity in North America and for setting the stage for the introduction of LTE in China and Mexico. She will also be remembered for a glitch-free tenure, a step forward from her predecessor, Linda Marshal.
Boler-Davis is best known (to me) for a speech in which she put a value on customer retention. Boler-Davis was quoted last year as saying that one percent of customer retention equals $700M in new car sales. Customer retention is a difficult figure to quantify, but the fact that Boler-Davis stepped forward to put a number on it and, thereby, prioritize the issue set her apart as a thought leader on the subject. This is important as OnStar ought to be seen by GM as a leading customer retention tool. OnStar also ought to be leveraged to identify and, hopefully, prevent failures such as the recent ignition switch recall.
That being said, Boler-Davis’ appointment might be seen by some as demoralizing to the Global Connected Consumer team for four reasons:
- It was not a promotion from within GCC - an ongoing challenge for GM
- The head of GCC is now a vice president, not a president
- GCC responsibilities appear to be “added on” to Boler-Davis’ existing responsibilities
- Boler-Davis does not bring a wireless carrier, IT or app development background to a position likely to require this expertise.
In spite of all that, Boler-Davis’ background in quality, customer experience and customer retention has positive implications for the future of OnStar. And GCC is shaping up as a focal point for diversity at GM, with the third consecutive female head of the organization. We can only hope that the late week announcement does not suggest the diminished importance of GCC and OnStar to the future of GM.
Boler-Davis has been given the keys to a high profile position at GM - one that some might consider a hot seat (six presidents in less than 10 years). Her trial by fire will no doubt be the upcoming CES show where expectations will be high for a powerful debut.
Meanwhile, the nomination of Mark Rosekind to lead the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration raised questions. The Automotive News story announcing Rosekind’s appointment highlighted his expertise in fatigue and pilot alertness during his work for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Rosekind’s appointment points to an enduring interest in issues related to driving fatigue as the top agency priority at NHTSA or, more likely, a desire to distract attention from NHTSA’s dubious performance at a time of record vehicle recalls, undue industry deference and lax enforcement. The Friday announcement of the Rosekind appointment is another case of diversion and misdirection.
There should be no rush to judgment of Rosekind, but it is worth noting that previous NTSB leadership (Debbie Hersman) has sought an outright ban of the use of mobile phones in cars. This thinking is out of line with recent developments intended to leverage mobile phones to enhance safe driving.
We can only hope that Rosekind, of all people, will be able to recognize the user experience differences between piloting an airplane and piloting a car. But a late week appointment does not inspire confidence. Distracted driving is suddenly looking like a small potatoes issue in the context of structural failures within the agency