GM To Make Cadillac Separate Business Unit With New York HQ

(RTTNews) - General Motors Co. (GM) on Tuesday announced a strategic realignment that will establish its luxury brand Cadillac as a separate business unit.

In addition, the new Cadillac organization will expand to New York with a new global headquarters opening in 2015.

"With the relentless upward repositioning of successive new-generation Cadillac products, the next logical step is to provide Cadillac more freedom to cultivate the brand in pursuit of further global growth," said GM President Dan Ammann.

Johan de Nysschen, who joined Cadillac as its new president in August, will be responsible for the brand's overall operational performance.

Cadillac's leadership council is headed by de Nysschen, and consists of Jim Bunnell, vice president of sales and service; Uwe Ellinghaus, chief marketing officer; David Colasinski, chief financial officer; David Leone, executive chief engineer, and Andrew Smith, executive director of design.

While the majority of functions with oversight and responsibility for both global and U.S. operations will be located at the new global headquarters, there will be no change to technical product development teams located in Michigan, nor does the plan impact manufacturing or assembly operations, GM said.

Cadillac management is reviewing options for which specific staffs will be based in New York and which will remain in current locations in the Detroit-area or elsewhere.