GM's Mary Barra on winning over shareholders

General Motors (GM) Chair & CEO Mary Barra has overcome a host of issues over her 10 years as leader of the 100-year-old plus automaker. At the time Barra took over as CEO, GM was still emerging from its 2009 bankruptcy and reeling from an ignition switch recall that led to over one hundred fatalities.

Barra was tasked with completely changing GM's siloed culture and changing how the public viewed the company’s cars, as well as regaining their trust, which she eventually did. Now, contrary to other automakers who are scaling back their immediate plans to convert their car and truck lineups to all-electric in response to slowing consumer demand, she is at it again, this time with GM shareholders.

Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor Brian Sozzi got the rare opportunity to sit shotgun with Barra in the newly designed E-Ray Corvette on GM’s technical campus in Michigan to hear what Barra believes are the most important things the company needs to focus on to win over investors. As well as how she intends to make good on her bets to become the leader of electric and autonomous vehicles despite stiff competition from Tesla (TLSA) and skepticism from shareholders.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Brian Vitagliano

Video Transcript

MARY BARRA: We're a company who's been around for more than 100 years. So we have to demonstrate that we can make this pretty substantial transformation. And, you know, we had some challenges last year that caused them-- gave them pause.

So, that's why this year is such an important year from an execution perspective. And I believe we're on track that we're going to get these vehicles out. We've had challenges at cruise, but we're going to have a better cruise going forward.

And when you think about how this industry is changing from how the vehicle is propelled to EV autonomous software, getting those right and demonstrating that, and then when people see our products, when they see the quality, I think it will be a different story. But we have to prove it.