GM General Motors Company

By Adrienne Roberts 

General Motors Co. is shuffling the roles of two top executives, giving its product chief more responsibility over the turnaround of its ailing luxury brand.

GM replaced the head of its Cadillac brand earlier this year, pushing for faster progress at the onetime U.S. luxury auto leader.

Rejuvenating Cadillac is among the priorities of GM Chief Executive Mary Barra, who is counting on Cadillac's re-emergence to help boost the auto maker's global profit margins. Cadillac is lagging brands such as Lexus, BMW AG and Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz.

GM President Dan Ammann, 46, will hand over the responsibilities of overseeing the Cadillac brand and the company's global product portfolio to GM veteran Mark Reuss, executive vice president of global product development. The moves will give Mr. Ammann, who will remain president, more time to focus on the launch of its robot ride-hailing service planned for next year.

The shift in responsibilities follows Japan's SoftBank Group Corp. investing $2.25 billion in GM's driverless-car unit through its Vision Fund. GM plans to launch a robot ride-hailing service in several cities across the U.S. next year, a business that GM executives believe could eventually outearn its core enterprise.

Mr. Reuss, 54, will become executive vice president and president of the global product group and Cadillac.

GM replaced the head of its Cadillac brand, Johan de Nysschen, in April. Since his arrival at Cadillac in 2014, the brand lost U.S. market share every year. GM leaders grew impatient with the lack of progress in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter, and replaced him with Steve Carlisle, a GM veteran. Mr. Carlisle will now directly report to Mr. Reuss.

Write to Adrienne Roberts at Adrienne.Roberts@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 21, 2018 16:12 ET (20:12 GMT)

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