DETROIT, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. auto giant General Motors Co. has lined up Microsoft's Chris Liddell to serve as its next chief financial officer, sources close to the company said.
It was known Liddell would leave Microsoft, but unknown was where he would end up next, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Liddell served four years as CFO at Microsoft, where Paul Klein will take his place. At GM, Liddell is joining an industry giant that went through bankruptcy this summer and emerged with previous shareholders wiped out and the reorganized company beholding to U.S. taxpayers for more than $50 billion in assistance. GM has since said it would repay $6.7 billion in U.S. and Canadian government loans by July 2010. It paid the first $1 billion last week, the Journal said.
GM, where Liddell will replace Ray Young in January, has recently gone through a top-level shakeup with the early December departure of Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson and the reassignment of Vice Chairman Bob Lutz.
GM Chairman Edward Whitacre Jr. took over the CEO job when Henderson left. Young was to leave GM, but agreed to help run the company's international communications in China, the Journal said.
