Top Highlights

• Her first job out of college in the 1980s was at a factory that was one of the first North American plants to adopt Japanese manufacturing and management methods—which Barra would be instrumental in applying across the company years later.
• Amid all the celebration, there was an undertone of condescension toward this woman with an electrical engineering degree, an MBA from Stanford, and more than 30 years of increasingly responsible positions at GM.
• She has proved herself over decades, starting when she joined Pontiac as an 18-year-old cooperative education student.
• Barra attributes her own career to a love of math and science and a willingness to follow that interest.
• Though women earn about 20 percent of degrees in engineering, they represent only about 11 percent of those employed as engineers, and many drop out after a few years.