--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: Mary Barra by Lee Iacocca: TIME 100 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- Apr 24, 2014 # Mary Barra by Lee Iacocca In a perfect world, gender shouldn’t matter. So it’s about time someone of Mary Barra’s caliber and experience was appointed to the coveted position of General Motors CEO. I’ve never had the privilege of meeting Barra, but although we are a number of decades apart, I’ve read her background and it is much the same as mine. She grew up in a working-class family, as did I, and fell in love with cars at a very young age. She fell in love with a red Chevy Camaro convertible, and I fell in love with the Model A my dad bought. Only time (and the pundits) will judge Barra and the kind of job she’ll do for GM, its board of directors, its employees, the dealers and, most important, the people who buy its cars. If she remains as forthcoming as I’ve seen her on television with Congress, she will enjoy a long tenure at the helm. _Iacocca is the former president of Ford and the former CEO of Chrysler_ Mary Barra by Lee Iacocca: TIME 100 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2014-time-100/70843/mary-barra-2014-time-100/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2014-time-100/70843/mary-barra-2014-time-100/"},"headline":"Mary Barra","datePublished":"2014-04-24T01:35:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T22:59:33.543Z","description":"The executive in the hot seat","url":"https://time.com/collections/2014-time-100/70843/mary-barra-2014-time-100/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/2014-time-100/70843/mary-barra-2014-time-100/","name":"Mary Barra"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Mary Barra on Her Biggest Influence","description":"Mary Barra speaks about the responsibility of being influential.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/FVSQ7YcQ/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-04-24T10:24:28.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/FVSQ7YcQ.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/2014-time-100/70843/mary-barra-2014-time-100/","duration":"PT59S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/2014-time-100/70843/mary-barra-2014-time-100/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```