GM South America will be headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil and will be led by Jaime Ardila, currently president and general manager GM Mercosur. Ardila becomes president, GM South America and will report to GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre.

GM South America includes GM’s existing sales and manufacturing operations in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela as well as sales activities in those countries and Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. GM South America currently has 29,000 employees.

As part of GM’s global product operations organization, GM South America has product design and engineering capabilities, which will allow it to continue creating local cars and trucks that complement GM’s global product architectures. In the first five months of the year, GM sold 394,000 vehicles in South America and its market share was 20.2%.

The GM International Operations team is doing a great job expanding our global presence. However, with the rapidly growing markets in Asia, the Middle East and Russia, we need the GMIO team focused exclusively on those countries that are critical to our growth.

—Ed Whitacre