#CFO

Dhivya Suryadevara, General Motors’ chief financial officer, is on the way out. After helping the automaker weather its worst storm since the 2008 recession and concurrent bankruptcy, Suryadevara announced her resignation Tuesday, effective August 15th. She’s leaving for a non-automotive position at Stripe, a San Francisco-based financial services and software company.

GM’s first female finance boss, Suryadevara took on the role in 2018, but the pandemic that rocked the auto industry this year also created new opportunities elsewhere.

The chief money man at the Blue Oval plans to hang up his Excel spreadsheets by the end of this year, according to sources in the know. He’s expected to stay on until a new top beancounter is broken in.

Why should you care? Because the Glass House is in the throes of a major product overhaul and under constant scrutiny from Wall Street, that’s why. Any shakeup in the corner offices is bound to have an effect on both activities, especially when recent earnings have been disappointing.

GM’s embattled finance department is getting new blood today, as The General has poached Microsoft’s Chris Liddell to take over as Chief Financial Officer. GM’s CFO position is being vacated by Ray Young, who was rumored to be on his way out as far back as last summer. Young will become a VP for international operations. The 51 year old Liddell has been Microsoft’s CFO since 2005, and is (irony of ironies) best known for reducing the software giant’s legendary cash position through buybacks and dividends. The Wall Street Journal estimates Liddell oversaw the return of $14b to Microsoft stockholders last fiscal year alone.

For all the criticism that’s been leveled at GM’s finance operation, the firm’s most recent CFOs have yet to pay much of a career price. Previous CFO Fritz Henderson was promoted to the CEO’s spot by the presidential auto task force, and Automotive News [sub] reports that current CFO Ray Young has just been named VP for International Operations. Young’s departure from GM’s finance unit has been something of a foregone conclusion since GM exited bankruptcy, with reports of his imminent departure in the Detroit papers of record going undenied, and a recent acknowledgment that a search was on for his successor. In light of GM CEO Ed Whitacre’s ongoing game of executive whack-a-mole, it was tempting to believe that Young was on his way out, but apparently GM CFOs are pre-sprayed with teflon.