JUNE 14, 2018
It’s yet another proud moment for India and it doubles in scale as the Dhivya Suryadevara has become the first woman Chief Financial Officer of the biggest auto company, General Motors. Known as a financial wizard, Dhivya Suryadevara will succeed Chuck Stevens on September 1.
Dhivya Suryadevara will be following the footsteps of Mary Barra who broke the glass ceiling when she became the first Chief Executive of the company.
Born and brought up in India, she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in commerce from the University of Madras in Chennai. Then, Dhivya Suryadevara moved to the United States for her higher studies at Harvard at the age of 22. She earned an MBA degree from there. She landed her first job at the investment bank UBS and joined General Motors, a year later, at an age of 25. Then there was no looking back. She was named Automotive News Rising Star in 2016 and a Crain’s Detroit Business 40 Under 40 winner last year.
“Dhivya’s experience and leadership in several key roles throughout our financial operations position her well to build on the strong business results we’ve delivered over the last several years,” Mary Barra, GM’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.
Just 39-years old, Dhivya Suryadevara played a role in securing a $2.25 billion investment in GM Cruise by Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group Corp earlier this month. She has played an integral role in some significant deals GM has made as it has restructured operations over the past several years, including the divestiture of the company’s European arm Opel and the acquisition of self-driving vehicle startup Cruise, Reuters reported.
With Suryadevara replacing Stevens, the Detroit-based automaker’s ranks will get closer to mirroring the share of women in senior jobs among S&P 500 companies, which is 27 percent, according to Catalyst, a nonprofit that tracks women in leaderships positions, Bloomberg reported.
Courtesy: Financial Times
