Reuss leaves Holden

Mark Reuss, the chairman and managing director of the red team, is being recalled to the USA to take up a senior post in the 'new GM'organisation.

His successor is Alan Batey, formerly the sales and marketing director at Fishermans Bend.

Reuss is the man who drove through the Cruze program for Australia, making a major switch in local manufacturing back to small cars, and also cemented the financial plan which allowed the company to survive the global shake-out triggered by GM's move into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

He arrived in February 2008 with big shoes to fill, coming in as the successor to Denny Mooney.

But Ruess, the son of a one-time president of GM global, was another engineering guru who balanced his ability on that side of the business with a keen ability on finances.

Most importantly, he was a fan of Holden who knew the company well from the time he used Holden Special Vehicles as a business model for a high-performance division at Cadillac.

He also bought a 48-215 for personal use soon after his arrival in Australia, although he recently upgraded to an FC Holden.

Batey arrived at Holden in January 2006 after starting his GM career as an engineering apprentice, although he quickly moved into sales and marketing and was fresh from integrating GM Daewoo into the GM world.