Key takeaways
- Cassandra Garber’s former employers embrace 3M, Coca-Cola and Basic Electrical.
- She constructed the sustainability group from scratch at medical provide firm McKesson.
- Garber was at Dell for 4 years, most not too long ago as chief sustainability officer.
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Cassandra Garber is leaving her submit as chief sustainability officer of pc agency Dell Applied sciences to tackle the identical position at automaker Basic Motors.
Garber’s first day at GM is Earth Day, April 22. She succeeds Kristin Siemen, who retired Oct. 31 after a 30-year profession with the corporate. Certainly one of Siemen’s high lieutenants, Kathi Walker, has been performing as interim CSO at GM.
Garber disclosed her determination to commerce “keyboards for dashboards” in a submit on LinkedIn that recalled hours spent visiting her grandfather’s radiator store whereas rising up in Huntingburg, Indiana. In her new position, she’ll drive GM’s zero-emissions car transition technique and round financial system enterprise practices that scale back waste throughout GM’s provide chain.
“If there’s one factor I’ve realized throughout my profession, it’s that sustainable enterprise is sensible enterprise,” Garber wrote on LinkedIn. “Decreasing threat, seizing innovation and progress alternative WHILE delivering actual and significant affect is the place it’s at. It’s onerous, however when executed, and executed nicely, it’s transformative for each enterprise and our world.”
Garber is constructing on a powerful basis, though GM and different automakers face an unsure future amid the Trump administration’s unpredictable commerce tariff technique.
GM managed to scale back tailpipe emissions 3 p.c between 2018 and 2023. The corporate not too long ago posted its finest first-quarter gross sales since 2018, together with a 94 p.c improve in EV purchases.
Big selection of expertise
Garber joined Dell in August 2021 to overtake the corporate’s environmental, social and governance technique — with the aim of embedding these metrics extra deeply throughout the enterprise.
“In just below 4 years we’ve reinvented all the ESG group, built-in it throughout the corporate, innovated in merchandise and applications and processes, streamlined and prioritized our focus, had a significant affect in so some ways, and we’ve celebrated the wonderful people who made all this occur,” she mentioned in one other LinkedIn submit.
Garber spent 10 years at Basic Electrical in communications and advertising roles earlier than transferring on to sustainability management roles targeted on reporting and strategic initiatives at Coca-Cola Co. and 3M. She additionally constructed the sustainability group at medical provider McKesson from scratch.
Dell didn’t reply to a request for remark about its plans to interchange Garber.