Joel Ewanick,
who was brought in to revamp General Motors Company’s (NYSE:GM) marketing
strategy about two years back following the bankruptcy and subsequent bailout
of the once heavy-weight automaker, has been asked to leave on the grounds that
he did not meet expectations, the company said in a statement.
Ewanick, 52, who
was the global marketing head, will have to quit the company immediately and
will be temporarily replaced by Alan Batey, currently the head of U.S. sales
and service. He had joined the company in May 2010, a few months prior to the
successful public offering by the company in November.
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"It has
been a privilege & honor to work with the GM Team and to be a small part of
Detroit's turnaround," Ewanick said on Twitter. "I wish everyone at
GM all the best."
Ewanick failed
to properly report financial details about a recent sponsorship deal between
GM's mass-market Chevrolet brand and the world's most popular soccer club,
Manchester United, news agency Reuters said quoting an unidentified source.
Reuters said
that when asked about the sponsored deal Ewanick replied in an email that he could not
comment. GM and the football club had signed the five-year deal in May this
year.
Ewanick has had
a long innings in the automotive sector having worked with Hyundai Motor
America at the height of the automobile slump in the U.S. and then with Nissan North America.
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Soon after he
joined GM, Ewanick got a campaign together to boost the Chevrolet brand called
"Chevy Runs Deep" which coincided with the Major League Baseball
World Series, 2010.
However there
were other controversial decisions he told such as removing GM's paid
advertisements from social networking site Facebook, which did not meet with
the approval his bosses within the company.
Shares in the
company had closed up 2.9 percent at $19.67 on Friday.
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