Born: 24 December 1961, United States
Died: NA
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Mary Makela
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
In 2014, General Motors’ first female CEO, Mary Barra, started her new job only weeks before a massive recall—millions of cars, in response to allegations that the company did not address ignition problems connected to more than a dozen deaths. Suddenly Barra was the one in the hot seat as the company was investigated by the Department of Justice and both houses of the U.S. Congress, among others. Barra was not informed of the problem until about a month before she started, and Prof. Haslam observed to the New Yorker that a contributing factor to the glass cliff is that women and minorities are less likely to have access to the information and support that would warn them away from such precarious positions.