General Motors Global Chief Marketing Officer Deborah Wahl is leaving the automaker.
A GM representative confirmed the news, saying Wahl “elected to retire” and “will be transitioning through March 31, 2023,” adding: “We appreciate Deborah’s contributions since joining GM in 2018 and wish her well in her next chapter. We will conduct an external search for a new Global Chief Marketing Officer.”
Wahl, 60, joined GM in March 2018 as CMO of its Cadillac brand and was promoted to global GM CMO in 2019. She had previously served as CMO of McDonald’s USA.
She has been named to the Automotive News 100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry list in 2000, 2005 and 2020.
Wahl’s career included brand strategy, communications and marketing roles with automakers including Ford, Toyota, Mazda and Chrysler. She told Automotive News in 2020 that her first automotive assignment was with Ford Motor Co. in Brazil, following a six-month post with the company in Dearborn, Mich.
In 2020, she described an industry on the cusp of major change, saying: “We’re at a true point of renaissance about the possibilities and the transformation that’s about to happen. It’s one of the reasons that I was so interested in participating with General Motors and being on that team to contribute.”
“I think we’re better as a whole, as an industry about how we go after customers, how we’re using data, how we’re using technology, speaking from the marketing chair,” she added at the time.
“The change in how we do work, how people think about doing work, how we look at transformation to me has been the most compelling. And I also believe that this period with the COVID pandemic has really accelerated all of us to think completely differently about it.
Under Wahl’s leadership, GM and Netflix teamed up this year on a Super Bowl ad and campaign to feature more electric vehicles in the streaming service’s shows and films.
Lindsay VanHulle of Automotive News contributed to this report.