GM CEO Mary Barra on what she’s learned during 10 years at the helm

Good morning! Levi Strauss CEO Michelle Gass shares how a Beyoncé song led to an ad campaign, FTC chair Lina Khan makes it easier to cancel memberships, and GM’s Mary Barra discusses the past and future of the d automobiles Have a great Thursday!

– Head bar In her decade at the helm of General Motors, Mary Barra has been tasked with modernizing a century-old auto company while righting the ship after a bankruptcy and ignition switch scandal threatened the future of the historic automaker .

It is not an easy role, and one in which Barra has experienced countless successes and setbacks. She was interviewed remotely Wednesday by editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell at the fortuneMost Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Barra is No. 1 on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women ranking this year, a spot she has held three times since becoming the first female CEO of a global automaker. Their tenure of a decade is more than twice the average for female Fortune 500 CEOs, and nearly three years longer than the average for male CEOs. He said part of that longevity is having a team around him that has the same mission and changing the company’s culture to reflect employees’ shared values.

“It’s easy to live your values ​​and have a corporate mission statement when everything is going well, but when you’re really challenged, that’s when people notice,” Barra said, noting that doing so allowed the company meet when the ignition scandal occurred. unfolding “We also said, look, we’re going to do everything in our power to help our customers during this period. We’re going to be transparent and then we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that something like this never happens again.”

GM has come a long way since Barra became CEO. In fact, last year the company brought in $171.8 billion, its best performance in 17 years. This is the long-term result of the structural changes that Barra began to institute from the beginning of his term.

It’s also the result of listening to customers and giving them more of what they want. And as Barra and GM look to the future, that includes doubling down on affordable electric vehicles.

“We need to continue to have affordable vehicles that people want to own and drive that are well designed, and the charging infrastructure needs to continue to improve,” he said. “We’re going to be flexible based on where the customer is and really be customer-driven.”

When asked for advice for other leaders, Barra said it’s about doing the right thing and investing in the right people.

“The other thing I always tell people is, when is the best time to solve a problem? And they look at me puzzled,” he says. “That’s when you know you’ve got one, because problems rarely get smaller.”

MPW 2024 is over, but you can find out more about our coverage for the week here. And Emma will be back tomorrow with more thoughts from the conference.

Alicia Adamczyk
[email protected]

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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com