In little more than a year leading GM Canada, Marissa West has already seen three dramatic shifts in the auto industry. 

That was one of the key takeaways from my conversation with her this week at The Logic Summit (which you can read more about here). Like many of the leaders interviewed at Monday’s event, West thinks the world is in a critical moment—in which the longtime General Motors engineer is trying to kick GM’s fossil-fuel habit and solidify Canada’s role in the clean-energy transition. 

Here are the three big changes she talked about:

Geopolitics in focus: GM is not only competing with other automakers—it’s been part of politicians’ push to increase supply-chain independence from China. West has helped steer GM’s transition to making its own battery materials in Quebec, trying to bridge the battery expertise in countries like South Korea with the manufacturing talent in North America. 

“The pandemic exposed a vulnerability that has accelerated the desire to bring manufacturing back to this continent. And that’s a good thing,” she said. “The thing that has changed, I would say, there has been a great deal of focus with GM to vertically integrate our battery technology. And I think everyone’s in a race right now.”

(West also weighed in on the hot topic of EV plant subsidies, which I wrote about here.)

Workforce in flux: With layoffs at most major automakers, downtime during chip shortages and EV plant remodels, it’s been a tough time for autoworkers—many of whom are heading into negotiations on new union agreements. 

West said the recent volatility has been an opportunity to “learn and be better,” and the company is looking for talent in new places by removing the default job descriptions that call for manufacturing experience or heavy lifting. For example, she said one woman who previously worked at a bakery quickly became one of the best employees in GM’s Oshawa, Ont., auto-paint shop because of her steady cake-decorating hand. 

“We set a goal to have 50 per cent of our new hires be women,” she said. “Very tactically, we adjusted our job description to be very, very inclusive.

“During the pandemic, many of the jobs that were hit the hardest were in hospitality. And it was rich with women employees that were now looking for an opportunity.”

Tech’s fast pace: West admitted that GM needs to work at gaining the trust of the environmental movement after years of being “part of the problem.” And it needs to do it fast, as the company prepares for the next-generations of battery technology. 

“It took 100 years to optimize the internal combustion engine,” she said. “It’s evolving, it’s evolving quickly.” 

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