Federico OverjeroThis was announced by General Motors vice president for Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay he will retire at the end of June. For the past two years Sheepdog was the virtual number one of the American automaker in the country and so far its position it has no substitute. The General Motors subsidiary is responsible for the company’s South American area, led by the Colombian Santiago Camorro from São Paulo, Brazil.
The institutional representation exercised up to now by Ovejero will be assumed by the commercial director of the subsidiary, also Colombian Raúl Mier.
Ovejero, 55, sent a note on Wednesday saying “after nearly 8 years at GM, June 30 will be the time to start a new phase of my professional life.” Prior to joining General Motors, Ovejero held senior positions in the institutional relations area of Unilever, McDonald’s and Walmart.
For the past two years, Ovejero has been the executive who completed the final phase of the industrial rollout of the Chevrolet Tracker, which has been produced since October at the General Motors plant in the small town of General Alvear, on the outskirts of Rosario.
That project, that it involved an investment of 300 million dollarsit was announced in 2017 by Carlo Zarlenga, who was the first Argentine president of the local branch of General Motors, a position that became vacant when Zarlenga was promoted to head of GM South America. Aloof shepherd dog as regional vice president.
Zarlenga’s announcement, in 2017, was to launch the new model in 2020. But after the devaluation of 2018, the shocks began: that same year the automaker should have gone out to confirm the project, given the indiscretions that have arisen requests by the parent company in Detroit, in charge of financing the investment.
In 2020 all car manufacturers had to paralyze their business for two months due to the pandemic and the investment in the Rosario plant was also abandoned suspended. In the middle of the same year the investment was confirmed again.
Zarlenga retired from General Motors in August 2021, and after a brief stint leading an investment fund he founded with colleague Barry Engle (who had developed a parallel career as General Motors head for North America), the Argentine was summoned in August 2022 to head the Mexican branch of the automaker Stellantis. Another year had passed and still the new Tracker it was not on the market.
The launch finally took place in October last year, in an almost unprecedented event in the local automotive industry: a new model, made in Argentina, no ribbon cutting. The new Tracker hit the market without ceremony or introduction. The final task of that stage, bureaucratic and silent, was carried forward by Ovejeroaccording to industry sources from Mexico, where today Zarlenga commands its competitor Stellantis.
Source: Clarin
