GM hires former Microsoft CFO as new finance chief

DETROIT — General Motors Co. said Monday it has hired the former chief financial officer of Microsoft Corp. as its new CFO, a key part of GM’s plan to rebuild its finances after bankruptcy.

Chris Liddell, a native of New Zealand whose background includes an engineering degree, had worked as Microsoft’s CFO since May 2005. In announcing his departure last month, Microsoft said Liddell wanted to “expand his career beyond being a CFO.”

Liddell, 51, will start with GM in January. GM’s current CFO Ray Young is transferring to a new job in international operations.

“Chris brings a depth and experience to this job that were unmatched in our search for a new financial leader,” Ed Whitacre,
GM chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “Chris will lead our
financial and accounting operations on a global basis and will report
directly to me. We’re also looking to his experience and insights in
corporate strategy as a member of the senior leadership team in helping
our restructuring efforts.”

The move has implications for GM’s search to find a
chief executive to replace Whitacre, who took the job after the board
of directors forced out former CEO Fritz Henderson.
Any new CEO will have to accept Liddell rather than making a hire, and
Liddell could become a candidate for CEO himself in a couple of years.

While the role of CFO at GM used to be a direct
stepping stone to chief executive, the company’s financial department
had struggled to solve several deficiencies following the discovery of
accounting problems in 2006 dating back to 2001.

During the run-up to its bankruptcy in June, the
Obama auto task force that dove into the company’s financials was
highly critical of its controls. Former task force chief Steven Rattner said the accounting was “perhaps the weakest … any of us ever seen in a major company.”

The financial reports GM released in November did
not use the “fresh start” accounting that companies emerging from
bankruptcy typically have to abide by, nor were they audited by an
outside firm. GM has said it would file quarterly and annual reports
with federal regulators in 2010 that comport with government standards.

Liddell, a native of Auckland, New Zealand, was the first outside CFO hired by Microsoft, and was a driving force behind the company’s unsuccessful $44.6-billion bid to buy Yahoo last year. Analysts gave him good grades for his performance at Microsoft, which cut costs by $3 billion last year.

In addition to an engineering degree, Liddell also has a degree in philosophy from Oxford University, and served as CFO at International Paper before joining Microsoft. A rugby fan and occasional player, Liddell had a jersey from the New Zealand All-Blacks team hanging in his office at Microsoft,
and named an employee award after the “haka” war dance the team
performs before matches, according to a 2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
story.

Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.