GM’s new product chief Sterling Anderson eyes technology renaissance

DETROIT — General Motors’ newest product and technology executive has said he thinks of the Detroit automaker as a canvas. One that can be curated, retouched or even torn apart.

After roughly six months as executive vice president and chief product officer, Sterling Anderson appears to be putting all three ideas to work as he oversees the company’s vast product portfolio — from the vehicles themselves to the software powering them.

Anderson, who left the self-driving car company Aurora Innovation that he co-founded to join GM in June, has quickly become the most influential product executive in more than 15 years, outside of GM President Mark Reuss.

He has consolidated power to oversee “the end-to-end product lifecycle” of GM vehicles, including manufacturing engineering, battery, software and services product management, and engineering teams, according to GM.

“My priority is to accelerate the pace of innovation. One of the ways we do that is with this disaggregation of this abstraction of software from hardware,” he told CNBC during an Oct. 22 technology event in New York. “That’s the point of the role, I think, is it brings together all of these pieces into a unified approach to how we do product going forward.”

Since then, the company’s acclaimed heads of software and artificial intelligence have unexpectedly exited the company after relatively short tenures. Their main responsibilities related to vehicles now fall under Anderson.

GM attributed the abrupt departures of Dave Richardson, senior vice president of software and services engineering, and Barak Turovsky, head of AI, to restructuring efforts.

“We are strategically integrating AI capabilities directly into our business and product organizations, enabling faster innovation and more targeted solutions,” a GM spokeswoman said about Turovsky’s departure in an emailed statement last week.

It’s another indication of Anderson’s strategy. He previously told CNBC that for GM to succeed, software and product must be thought of as one and the same rather than as separate units, like they have been in recent years.

Anderson said he spent the first months of his GM tenure “in a listen mode,” immersing himself in the automaker’s operations.

“What that five months of listening has allowed me to do is really fine tune and target how we’re going, not just kind of what we’re going to innovate on, but how we’re going to do it,” he said in the October interview.

A third executive is also leaving soon, as Baris Cetinok, senior vice president of software and services product management, will depart the company effective Dec. 12, as first reported by CNBC.

Unlike Richardson and Turovsky, the company did not attribute his departure to the restructuring. Three sources familiar with the situation who spoke anonymously because the discussion was private told CNBC that Cetinok left to pursue another opportunity.

Cetinok, Richardson and Turovsky either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment about their departures. Cetinok and Richardson joined GM in 2023, while Turovsky was hired in March.

Anderson, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant turned Tesla executive, said before he joined GM, he had thought of the automaker more of a comedic caricature rather than a canvas that he would help turn into a modern masterpiece.

Anderson said CEO Mary Barra and Reuss, whom he reports to, helped him break down that “old-world automotive” caricature and concerns about employees of the automaker not supporting his efforts.

“I was really worried about it, right? I’m the Silicon Valley cowboy that’s coming into Detroit and, you know, ‘pew pewing’ his way through an innovation story with a team that I was concerned wouldn’t receive that well. I found it quite different from what I’d expected,” Anderson said.

His appointment is a refocus for the automaker on software-defined vehicles and autonomy. He said GM’s goal is to build an autonomous vehicle, which comes a year after the company disbanded its majority-owned Cruise AV business following years of development and billions of dollars in capital.

“Just be clear, we’re developing a self-driving product,” he told CNBC. “It’s a self-driving product that can be safe without any handbacks to the human in safety critical situations.”

Barra on Wednesday cited Anderson and the automaker’s past efforts in autonomous vehicles as reasons why GM is “well positioned” to achieve autonomous highway driving in its vehicles beginning in 2028.

“As we talk about artificial intelligence, autonomous driving is one of the ultimate applications that I still strongly believe in,” Barra said at The New York Times DealBook Summit, reconfirming the automaker’s “personal autonomous vehicle” plans rather than Cruise robotaxis.

Anderson is considered a leading expert in vehicle autonomy. Before co-founding self-driving firm Aurora, he led Tesla’s Model X program and the team that delivered its “Autopilot” advanced driver assistance system. He also developed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s “Intelligent Co-Pilot,” a semi-autonomous vehicle safety system.

Anderson, who holds a master’s and Ph.D. in robotics from MIT, said it took several conversations for him to leave Aurora, which he thought he “would die with.”

He isn’t alone in his change of heart; however not many have lasted long at the automaker. Several other current and former Silicon Valley executives have voiced similar optimism about GM as well as its longstanding CEO and president — both of whom have spent their entire careers at the automaker as “GM lifers.”

Richardson previously hailed working for Barra, who he reported to before Anderson, as “an opportunity of a lifetime.” Cetinok previously described his position as “a product person’s dream” in an interview with CNBC.

Jens Peter “JP” Clausen, who led Tesla’s manufacturing expansion and worked at Lego and Google, partly credited the “opportunity to work for a leader like” Barra as a reason to join GM as its head of manufacturing before an unexpected departure after only one year.

The accolades have gone both ways. When Anderson’s appointment with GM was announced in May, Barra and Reuss hailed Anderson as being equipped to “evolve” and “reinvent” the automaker’s operations.

In addition to Anderson’s new product unit, Reuss continues to oversee the automaker’s manufacturing, design, marketing and sales, among other operations.

The global automotive industry has battled for years to better integrate technology into vehicles — from their production to consumer-facing software and remote, or “over-the-air,” updates like Tesla pioneered.

GM has taken an aggressive approach to tech by hiring leaders from Tesla and companies such as Apple and Google. However, many times, those executives have had short tenures with the company, such as the three most recent departures.

“[Traditional U.S. automakers] have very much had a significant struggle with understanding software and electronics technology, and that has caused them to have a parade of experts quote ‘coming in to help,'” said Peter Abowd, an engineer turned automotive and technology consultant.

Abowd, general manager of engineering excellence at consulting firm Envorso, attributed the executive turnover to “a misapplication of skills and talent,” as well as unrealistic expectations and overwhelming responsibilities in a company as large as GM and an industry as complex as the automotive world.

“It’s just kind of setting the person up for a bit of failure,” Abowd said. “In a couple years, you can’t culturally shift an organization … so the best thing to do is to part ways.”

That kind of turnover has led automakers like GM to regularly pivot in different directions, including in-vehicle technologies, electric vehicle batteries and other areas not traditionally “core” to the automotive industry.

Barra, who is GM’s longest-serving CEO since the company’s founder, has become known for hiring executives at opportunistic times based on the company’s top priorities, which now appear to largely land under Anderson.

GM “is really good at a lot on things” that aren’t necessarily apparent to those outside the company, according to Anderson. He said he believes combining his experience with fast-moving companies such as Tesla and Aurora and GM’s “massive machine” and resources will better position the automaker for the future.

“I view it as a canvas,” Anderson said. “This is an extraordinary opportunity for innovation, and I’d be remiss not to see what I can do for it.”