Indian-American Dhivya Suryadevara to become CFO of General Motors

Indian-American Dhivya Suryadevara
to become CFO of General Motors

Houston: One An Indian-American woman, Dhivya Suryadevara has been named the Chief Finance Officer of the US’ largest automaker, General Motors.

Ms. Suryadevara, currently the vice president of corporate finance, will succeed Chuck Stevens, the General Motor’s present CFO, on September 1, the company said in a statement on Thursday, 14^th June 2018.


Chennai-born Ms. Suryadevara, 39, has been General Motor’s vice president of corporate finance since July 2017. She will report to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mary Barra, 56, who has been head of the automaker since 2014.


Ms. Barra and Ms. Suryadevara are the first women in their respective positions in the auto industry, as no other major global automaker has a female CEO, nor a CEO and CFO who are both female.


General Motors will join a very short list of S&P 500 companies, including Hershey Co. and American Water Works Co., with women serving as CEO and CFO.


Ms. Suryadevara earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in commerce from the University of Madras in Chennai. She moved to the U.S. at the age of 22 to pursue her MBA from Harvard University.


She is a chartered financial analyst and accountant, and worked at UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers before joining the Detroit-based General Motors in 2005 at the age of 25.


“Dhivya’s experience and leadership in several key roles throughout our financial operations positions her well to build on the strong business results we’ve delivered over the last several years,” Barra said in a statement.


Mr. Stevens, 58, has been CFO at the largest US automaker since January 2014 and will retire in March next year as a more than 40-year veteran of the company.