GM software leader Baris Cetinok leaving amid automaker restructuring

DETROIT – A third high-profile tech executive is leaving General Engines According to information obtained by CNBC, the restructuring of the automaker’s software and product businesses continues.

Barış Çetinok, GM’s senior vice president of software and services product management, will leave the company effective Dec. 12, the automaker confirmed Tuesday, following an internal announcement to employees.

Çetinok became the third executive to leave GM and move from technology to automotive in about a month as the company merged its vehicle software engineering and global product units under a single organization. B.New Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson.

“Baris has built a strong software product management team at GM. We are grateful for his contributions and wish him continued success. By combining hardware and software engineering under Global Product, we are integrating product management with engineering to accelerate the delivery of exceptional in-vehicle experiences,” GM said in an emailed statement to CNBC.

Çetinok joined GM in September 2023 after working in companies such as. Apple, Microsoft And AmazonHe could not immediately be reached for comment. The announcement of his departure comes a month after he described the position as “a product person’s dream” in an interview with CNBC.

Dave Richardson, GM’s senior vice president of software and services engineering, and Barak Turovsky, GM’s head of artificial intelligence, have also left the company since October. Richardson was at GM for more than two years, while Turovsky was hired in March.

Anderson left the autonomous driving company he founded. Aurora InnovationTo join GM. He told CNBC last month that for the automaker to be successful, software and product must be thought of as one and the same.

“I think that’s the point of the role, is to bring all of these pieces together into a unified approach to how we’re going to make future products,” Anderson said in an interview at a GM technology event Oct. 22 in New York.

Anderson was a former consultant for McKinsey & Co. Tesla’s The AutoPilot program said its goal is to accelerate the pace of GM’s innovations.

When Anderson’s appointment as GM was announced in May, Cetinok said in a LinkedIn post: “I’m happy to welcome you” To the management company. GM CEO Mary Barra and GM President Mark Reuss also greeted Anderson equipped to “evolve” and “reinvent” the automaker’s operations.

The global automotive industry has struggled for years to better integrate technology into vehicles, from manufacturing to consumer-facing software and remote or “over-the-air” updates. Tesla’s led the way.

GM has taken an aggressive approach to combat such challenges by hiring leaders from tech companies like Apple and Google, as well as Tesla. However, most of the time, the tenure of such managers in the company was short.