Chennai's Dhivya Suryadevara named first female CFO of General Motors

One more moment of pride for the city of Chennai, as city native Dhivya Suryadevara has been appointed as Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of the US largest automaker, General Motors. It may be noted that Google CEO Sundar Pichai was another Chennaiite who has made it to the top of the global multinational internet major. 

Suryadevara, 39, currently the vice president, Corporate Finance, will succeed Chuck Stevens, the GM's present CFO, on September 1, the company said in a statement.

She was in Chennai till her college days after her bachelor's and master's degrees in Commerce from the University of Madras and moved to the US at the age of 22 to pursue her MBA from Harvard University. She worked at UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers before joining the Detroit-based GM in 2005 at the age of 25.

According to an interview published in the Real Simple magazine, earlier, she spent most of her childhood in Chennai.

Her father passed away when she was very young and mother raised Dhivya and her two siblings on her own. She completed her graduation in Commerce from the University of Madras.

She elaborated to the magazine that her mother made sure that their education was taken care of well. 

Suryadevara, an Indian-American chartered financial analyst, will report to GM's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mary Barra. Chennai perhaps is one of the few cities globally which produced women leaders for the auto industry.

Mallika Srinivasan heads TAFE, one of the World's largest tractor makers. Arathi Krishna, her younger sister Arundhati are heading one of the World's leading auto components makers Sundram Fasteners.

Apart from them, there are several women from the family holding key positions across the $7.2-billion TVS group – Preetha Muthanna at Sundaram Industries, TVS Tyres MD Shobana Ramachandran and Lakshmi Venu at Sundaram Clayton. 

GM will join a very short list of S&P 500 companies, including Hershey Co. and American Water Works Co., where women are serving as CEO and CFO, says PTI.

In her role as vice president, Corporate Finance, since July 2017, Suryadevara has been responsible for corporate financial planning, investor relations and special projects. She played an integral role in some significant deals at GM including the divestiture of its European arm Opel and the acquisition of self-driving vehicle startup Cruise, GM said in a statement.

Earlier this month, she played a role in securing a $2.25 billion investment in GM Cruise by Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group Corp, and GM's investment in San Francisco-based on-demand transportation company Lyft, it added.

Suryadevara served as CEO and Chief Investment Officer for GM Asset Management from 2013 to 2017. In this capacity, she was responsible for the management of business and investment activities of GM's $85 billion pension operations.