Mary Barra is an American businesswoman and one of the most prominent leaders in the automotive industry.
Born Mary Teresa Makela on December 24, 1961, in Royal Oak, Michigan, she comes from a working-class family of Finnish descent.
Her father, Ray Makela, worked for 39 years as a die maker at General Motors’ Pontiac division, immersing her in the auto world from childhood.
Her mother, Eva Makela, a second-generation Finnish American and stay-at-home mom with part-time bookkeeping work, strongly emphasized education and hard work.
Barra grew up in suburban Detroit, where her family’s blue-collar roots and belief in the American Dream shaped her path.
Siblings
Mary Barra has one sibling, an older brother named Paul Makela.
Paul and Mary were the first in their immediate family to attend and graduate from college, largely due to their mother’s encouragement and insistence on higher education as a path to opportunity.
Paul pursued a career in medicine and became a gynecologist practicing in Livonia, Michigan.
Career
Barra’s career at General Motors spans over four decades, beginning in 1980 at age 18 as a co-op student at the General Motors Institute (now Kettering University), where she inspected hoods and fender panels while earning her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1985.
Also Read: Federico Pellegrino Siblings: Meet Francesco Pellegrino and Alice Pellegrino
Sponsored by the Pontiac division, this hands-on experience rooted her deeply in GM’s operations.
She later received a GM fellowship to attend Stanford Graduate School of Business, earning an MBA in 1990.
Over the years, she held progressively senior roles, including vice president of global manufacturing engineering, vice president of global human resources, senior vice president of global product development, and executive vice president of global product development, purchasing, and supply chain.
In these positions, she oversaw engineering, vehicle launches, and supply chain strategies.
On December 10, 2013, she was named CEO of General Motors, taking office on January 15, 2014, becoming the first woman to lead a major global automaker.
As CEO and later chair of the board (elected in 2016), she navigated GM through crises like the ignition switch recall, steered the company toward electrification and autonomy, and positioned it as a leader in electric vehicles with models like the Chevy Bolt and upcoming affordable EVs.
Accolades
Barra was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2023 for becoming the first female CEO in the industry and her transformative tenure at GM.
She has topped or ranked highly on influential lists, including number one on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in 2015 (and remaining prominent in subsequent years), fourth on Forbes’ World’s 100 Most Powerful Women in 2018, and fifth in 2017.
In 2014, she appeared on Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People cover.
Other honors include the 2024 Ernest C. Arbuckle Award from Stanford Graduate School of Business for excellence in management leadership, the InsideEVs Breakthrough Person of the Year in 2024 for GM’s electric vehicle turnaround, Automotive News’ 2024 Industry Leader of the Year, and the Women Business Collaborative’s Excellence in Gender and Diversity CEO Award in 2021.
She was also elected to the National Academy of Engineering and received awards like the Larry Foster Award for Integrity in Public Communication.
Email your news TIPS to Editor@Kahawatungu.com — this is our only official communication channel
