DETROIT -- The pressure is on for General Motors Corp.'s newly appointed president and chief operating officer, Frederick A. "Fritz" Henderson, to drive profits at the global corporation that recently reported its worst earnings ever.
But the Detroit native likes pressure. He seeks it out. "I love doing things other people think can't be done," Henderson likes to say.
But the hurdles that lie ahead of Henderson, 49, who is now at the day-to-day helm of GM, are expected to be at least as difficult to clear as those the company already has crossed. As GM's No. 2 executive, he is seen as the most likely successor to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer G. Richard Wagoner Jr., who is 55.
Henderson was a key player in last year's labor talks with the United Auto Workers. He helped to forge a landmark, cost-cutting contract that is expected to save $5 billion in labor costs by 2011.
Henderson also was crucial to resolving a labor impasse at Delphi Corp. last year.
And, although he has had a hand in the automaker 's North American turnaround that has sliced $9 billion in annual fixed costs since 2005, he has been unable to turn the huge corporation into a profitable business that is free of accounting embarrassments.
The automaker recorded a $38.7 billion loss in 2007. While it was primarily a paper loss driven by a tax accounting rule, one of the reasons GM took the write-down was that it was unable to forecast with certainty a return to profitability.
The 2007 loss - the worst fiscal year in the history of the auto industry - came on top of numerous restatements by the corporation's once-vaunted accounting and finance division.
Still, there is an exceptional level of confidence inside and outside of GM that if anyone can right this business today, it is Henderson, who is one of the few automotive executives to have presided over operations in every region of the world.
He was president of GM's operations in Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East before Wagoner asked him to come back to Detroit to serve as chief financial officer in January 2006, when John M. Devin stepped down.
The automaker's board elected Henderson to be president and chief operating officer in February - putting him squarely in charge of the company's global business - after allowing the positions to sit vacant for nearly five years.
Those who know Henderson say he is eager to take a crack at fixing what's wrong and improving what's right in the day-to-day operations of the company. Henderson, it's said, wakes up every day with a detailed plan for how he will improve the organization.
Henderson has worked at GM for most of his professional career, except for a short stint at Price Waterhouse in Detroit between receiving his bachelor's degree in business from the University of Michigan in 1980 and a master's degree in business administration from Harvard Business School in 1984.
Brent Dewar, now GM North America vice president of field sales, service and parts, worked with Henderson during his stint as president of GM's Brazilian operations. He said Henderson was a great choice as president and chief operating officer.
Henderson has a great ability to gather information and distill it quickly to come up with a plan of action, said Dewar.
In October 1997, just 10 months after Henderson arrived in Brazil, the country's economy collapsed. Within just a couple of days, Dewar said, Henderson had devised a recovery plan with assignments for members of his team. The plan included job cuts and a plant closing, but it is credited with setting the stage for GM's Brazilian operations to achieve the tremendous growth it enjoys today. "He's pragmatic; he's succinct; he's down-to-earth, and he's exceedingly intelligent," Dewar said.