Automotive News - November 9, 2015 - Supplement - 103W

20151109-Sup1--0103-NAT-CCI-AN_--

11/2/2015

1:01 PM

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NOVEMBER 9, 2015 * 103W

L E A D I N G

W O M E N

MARJORIE LOEB

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Senior Vice President - General Counsel | FCA
US | Auburn Hills, Mich. | Age: 51 | Education:
B.S., math and economics, Wellesley College;
J.D., Harvard University
● What attracted you to the auto industry? My husband
is in academic medicine and dragged me from Boston to
Michigan. When I got here, I joined another private law
firm. I frankly was bored to tears with the level of practice,
the complexity, the difficulty and everything else. Plus, if
you're in Detroit, you're in the auto industry. So when I
had the opportunity to take the position at Delphi
Automotive, I jumped at it.
● First automotive job: Senior counsel at Delphi
Automotive in 2002
● Big break: Any time an organization goes through a
dramatic upheaval or change, which at Delphi was an
accounting investigation and then going down into
bankruptcy, if I'm given the opportunity, I tend to handle
the crisis or change well. So my big break was working at
Delphi through its change and taking it through
bankruptcy. When I joined what is now FCA, I was able to
fully apply my Delphi experience to the opportunity I was
given here, managing through the changes that achieved
the unity of ownership and now moving to fully integrate
[Fiat and Chrysler], including a global legal staff.
● What is the major challenge you've faced in your
career? Building a cohesive team that can operate
without you was my biggest challenge. All the roles I had
before Chrysler were roles where I knew I could do the
work and do an excellent job. When I first came to this
team, it was as a head of a group of the office of general
counsel, not as head of the whole office of general
counsel. It was the first time I had to manage a group of
individuals, and it was after the office of general counsel
had just emerged out of bankruptcy and was very
fractious. Shifting to that role of not taking care of
everything yourself, effectively delegating but providing
the right level of guidance, and getting a group that was

>> HAVING
HER SAY:
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very bright, highly educated to cooperate with each other
was a big challenge. It's the greatest gratification when
you get the best out of people and get their best work.
● Who has had the biggest influence on your career? My
parents gave me the tools for what I needed to succeed
and gave me the support that I needed. They gave me the
strength of moral character and the opportunity for an
education. My dad was a corporate lawyer and headed a
law firm. My mom was a social worker. She was one of
the first women to go back for a graduate degree after
raising children in the '70s. Most wives of upper-middleclass law firm partners didn't do that, but she went back
and forged her own career.
● What should be done to encourage women to enter

ELIZABETH GRIFFITH
Director of Engineering, Product Development
& Design, GM Global | Faurecia | Auburn Hills,
Mich. | Age: 61 | Education: B.S., mechanical
engineering, General Motors Institute
● What attracted you to the auto industry? It was an
accident. I did not set out to be in automotive. I had a
goal of going to the University of Michigan, majoring in
music and taking a minor in library science. I had a full
scholarship. My older brother was going to GMI. He
came home one day in 1971 and told me GM is looking
for "smart women" and gave them my name. The next
day I was called in for an interview at GM's Fort Street
plant. I was made an offer for a sponsorship right there.
That was unheard of. I thought about it. I come from a
very poor family. I grew up in inner city Detroit. So it
became an issue of music or a career. I talked it over
with my mother, and she said, "Do whatever you want to
do."
● First automotive job: Industrial engineer doing time
and delay studies on the factory floor at Fisher Body in
1977
● Big break: My big break was when Jack Smith was
GM president. They had moved the component divisions
and were setting up Delphi. J.T. Battenberg wanted to
get into Eastern Europe. We were working with the
Polish government to try and get business. There was a
proposal to take on the vehicle made in Poland and
have all the divisions of Delphi show what we could do
in terms of innovation and retrofit a vehicle. I was
selected to head that. We took the vehicle and showed
what it would take to bring it in line with Western-made
vehicles. We did an automatic liftgate and redid the
interior. We had to present to GM executives, including
Smith. That was truly a breakthrough.
● What is the major challenge you've faced in your
career? Patience. I think even today a good thing for
people coming up through the ranks is that you have to
take the time to learn and be somewhere just long
enough to understand it and gain that knowledge so you

the auto industry? Women still think about work-life
balance and start making choices based on what they
think is going to happen. And when they see more women
up at the top of the table, they figure, "They must have
figured it out, so I can, too."
I've seen younger women start worrying about their worklife balance when they're a senior in college and picking
their career when they're not married, they don't have
kids, they don't know what's going to be there. Women
tend to do that more than men. We tend to plan ahead
and plan ahead and plan ahead. That's exactly the wrong
approach. Don't make choices and close off avenues
until you have to. Women take themselves out of the
running when they don't see role models. Now we have to
try to retain the women we have. The fact that the auto
industry keeps changing makes it the reason you should
be here. I haven't been bored yet.
● Tell us about your family. I have two girls. They're twins
but not identical. My husband and I are now completely
empty nesters. They're seniors at Wellesley College and
Bates College. My husband works also a very busy, busy
job. We now spoil our two cats and our one dog because
we don't have kids at home.
● What's your favorite weekend activity? If it's not
traveling somewhere, it's just walking the dog with my
husband, to the beach especially. We have an apartment
in Chicago where my husband works, so we're right on the
lakeshore. I like the city, so I usually commute back and
forth on the weekends.
● Are you able to maintain friendships? Oh, yeah. We
entertain a lot, too. I exercise because my husband is a
gourmet cook, and I have to be able to eat. The first
purchase in any new home is always a large dining room
table so you can have company.
● Best advice you've ever gotten? Always do everything
right and finish it and do it well, but do it your way. Don't
change the core of who you are and what your principles,
ethics and guidelines are for any reason. Stand your
ground. Do it politely, do it tactfully, but stand your
ground.
- Hannah Lutz

●

can take it forward. It has to be embedded, not surface.
Luckily in my career I moved jobs every 18 to 24
months.
● Who has had the biggest influence on your career?
Bob Dieber, superintendent of process engineering at
GM's Fort Street plant. When I went to work for him, I
was scared to death. He was known in the plant as
being the toughest, the meanest; he was a
perfectionist. But I learned the most from that man. I did
terrific things in that environment.
● What should be done to encourage women to enter
the auto industry? They need role models. In order to
be it, you have to see it. Women need strong role
models that reach out and do mentoring and
demonstrate what it is possible to do. We need to do
this at a very early age. Girls turn off math and science
in grade school and junior high. We need an outreach
program that keeps their interest in that and shows
them the possibilities.
● Tell us about your family. My family is terrific. I grew
up with three brothers. My mother would have told you I
was bossy. Because I pretty much had no girls around
me, I was socialized with wolves. And I think that is part
of my success; I have been told I am very direct, much
like men. I don't have emotional responses like most
women. My husband and I are complete opposites. He's
one of the smartest men I know. He makes me laugh
every single day. And he's incredibly supportive.
● What's your favorite weekend activity? Reading. I
am a voracious reader, even with my workload. I try to
read four to eight books a week. I love science fiction.
● Are you able to maintain friendships? Yes. I make
sure that I do. I have people in my life that I have known
for more than 50 years, and they are close. I don't have
a lot of them, but you need a select couple to really
keep you grounded.
● If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead,
who would it be? Albert Einstein. I'd like to find out how
his mind works, how he came up with so many things.
Not only the technical or scientific part, but he got into

quite a few metaphysical things, so that whole
combination of the physical and the spiritual, that would
intrigue me.
● What's your guilty pleasure? This is going to sound
strange, but my guilty pleasure is sitting by myself at
home with just the cat, not thinking about work. I spend
so much time around people; I spend so much time on
the phone. And working. When I can just spend time
quietly at home doing nothing.
- Richard Truett

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Automotive News - November 9, 2015 - Supplement

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