Hachette India

American Turnaround

Ed Whitacre

It was President Obama who reached out to Ed Whitacre to come out of retirement and take over GM in 2009. A down-to-earth, no-nonsense Texas native with a distinctive Texas twang in his voice, Whitacre was reluctant to come out of retirement to work at GM.

But Whitacre is that rare CEO with great charisma and extraordinary management instincts. And when he got to Detroit, he started to whittle down the corporate bureaucracy right away - and got GM back on track in record time

Before being pulled out of retirement to run GM by Obama, Ed Whitacre had spent his entire corporate career in the telecom business, where he ultimately ended up running AT&T.

Ed Whitacre

Ed Whitacre is the former chairman and CEO of two major American corporations: General Motors and AT&T. At GM he set a clear vision and mandate - "Design Build and Sell the World's Best Vehicles" - that continues to this day. As the chief executive of AT&T Whitacre applied a set of management principles and disciplined growth strategy that would turn the company originally known as Southwestern Bell into the largest telecom in the world.