Cassandra Garber is set to join General Motors (GM) as Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO), departing her current role at Dell Technologies. Her appointment at the US carmaker will commence on Earth Day, 22 April, as she succeeds Kristin Siemen, who retired in October 2023 following a three-decade tenure at GM. Kathi Walker has been serving as interim CSO in the intervening months.
Garber announced her move in a LinkedIn post, saying she was trading “keyboards for dashboards” and reflecting on her childhood visits to her grandfather’s radiator shop in Huntingburg, Indiana. At GM, she will oversee the company’s zero-emissions vehicle strategy and efforts to advance circular economy practices across its supply chain.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my career, it’s that sustainable business is smart business,” Garber wrote. “Reducing risk, seizing innovation and growth opportunity while delivering real and meaningful impact is where it’s at.”
Her arrival comes as GM and other automakers navigate geopolitical uncertainty and the effects of shifting US trade policy. Between 2018 and 2023, GM achieved a 3% reduction in tailpipe emissions and recently reported its strongest first-quarter sales performance since 2018, including a 94% surge in electric vehicle sales.
Garber joined Dell in 2021 with a mandate to revitalise its environmental, social and governance (ESG) approach. “In just under four years, we’ve reinvented the entire ESG organisation, integrated it across the company, innovated in products and programmes, streamlined and prioritised our focus, and had a meaningful impact in so many ways,” she said in a farewell post.
Before her tenure at Dell, Garber held senior sustainability roles at Coca-Cola, 3M, and McKesson, where she built the sustainability team from the ground up. She also spent a decade at General Electric in marketing and communications.
