Before jobs at Tesla and Apple, new GM VP fixed up a Buick
This article was originally published HERE
General Motors got its newest vice president from Tesla, but he was raised on GM.
Zach Kirkman joined GM in January as vice president of corporate development and global mergers and acquisitions. He previously spent six years at Tesla, where he had a similar role, and before that worked in finance and corporate development at Apple.
GM announced the hire in a brief LinkedIn post by CFO Paul Jacobson that featured a photo of Kirkman from well before his Silicon Valley days. He’s sitting in the driver’s seat of a rusted-out convertible as a teenager.
“Zach is a true auto enthusiast and has always had GM running through his veins,” Jacobson wrote. “His first car was a 1969 Buick Wildcat convertible that he fully restored with his father.”
Kirkman’s arrival at GM comes about three months after the automaker added former Tesla sales chief Jon McNeill to its board of directors.