DETROIT — General Motors has appointed Sigal Cordeiro, a company veteran of 19 years, to lead its Maven mobility brand.
Cordeiro replaces Julia Steyn, who unexpectedly left the automaker last month as vice president of Maven and GM urban mobility. Her appointment was effective Feb. 15. Cordeiro's mission, according to the company, will be to "define the future of personal mobility through an on-demand sharing marketplace."
Cordeiro, 46, a native of Brazil, was most recently executive director of global product marketing for GM's forthcoming GEM (Global Emerging Markets) platform. She led product definition, market positioning and "drove significant improvements in program profitability," according to GM.
Cordeiro joined GM in 2000 as a Chevrolet brand analyst in Detroit, followed by roles in product and brand research and global product marketing.
Before joining GM, Cordeiro managed marketing partnerships at TAM Brazilian Airlines and was director of consumer insights with NBC Universal.
The appointment of Cordeiro, who was not available for comment, is a shift from Steyn, who spent much of her career outside of GM and whose background focused more on business development rather than marketing.
GM is in the midst of growing Maven from a traditional vehicle sharing service such as Zipcar to peer-to-peer vehicle sharing, including the addition of allowing non-GM vehicles on its app-based platform. Those plans are not expected to change under Cordeiro.
Maven's current peer-to-peer initiative — launched in July 2018 — allows owners and eligible lessees of GM vehicles (2015 and newer) to make them available on its car-sharing platform for cash.
Steyn was with Maven since its inception in January 2016. Known as an outside-the-box thinker, she had ambitions to develop Maven into a sharing platform for more than just cars. But the long-term plan for Maven, its place within GM and how to expand it into a profitable business haven't always been clear.
The circumstances around Steyn's departure remain unclear, but they weren't believed to be part of the automaker's plan to cut 15 percent of its salaried work force in North America, including 25 percent of its global executives.
Annalisa Bluhm, a Maven spokeswoman, in a statement, said Steyn "elected to leave GM to pursue external interests."
Editor's note: An earlier version of this report misspelled Sigal Cordeiro's name. It has been corrected.
