Travis Hester President and Managing Director GM Canada

Travis Hester was appointed President and Managing Director of GM Canada in April 2018, reporting to Alan Batey, President, GM North America.

Prior to his current position, he held the position of Vice President, Global Chief Engineers & Program Management. In that role, he led a team of Executive Chief Engineers and Program Managers overseeing specific groups of vehicles from inception to launch and beyond. This team has responsibility for balancing overall vehicle imperatives including, customer, appearance, manufacturability, material cost, vendor tooling, investment, quality and performance targets. Travis reported to Mark Reuss, GM Executive Vice President, Global Product Development in this role.

Prior to this role, Travis was the Executive Chief Engineer for Premium Luxury Vehicles and worked exclusively on new Omega architecture derivatives and the Cadillac CT6, a position he held since August 2012. The Cadillac CT6 is known for its many advanced technology breakthroughs including the light weight Mixed Material architecture & world first technologies such as Supercruise and Inside Rear View Camera Mirror.

Hester has worked as a resident in the United States twice, China, Australia in addition to architecture development in GM Korea & GM Europe. Currently he is permanent resident at Warren Tech Center, MI USA.

In China, Hester worked as the Vehicle Chief Engineer PATAC on vehicles such as the Buick Regal and LaCrosse, along with the Sonic. During this time, he worked on the Regal launch in conjunction with Europe (GME) and the first PATAC responsible PT Integration in the Global Epsilon platform. He also led the 1st Global Interior Execution on a GM Global Architecture in partnership with GME and GM North America (GMNA) for the LaCrosse. For the Sonic, he worked on the Global Gamma Launch in conjunction with GM Korea and was a part of the first PATAC Locally Developed CDOHC integration into GM Global Architecture.

Originally from Australia, Hester relocated to the U.S. for the first time in November 2005 as an Advanced Program Engineering Manager. In this role he worked on the Global Rear Wheel Drive Advanced Vehicle Development for the Zeta ( VE Commodore and ) platforms.

Hester’s career began in Australia at GM Holden as the Technical Support Engineer in October 1995. Here he worked on rear-wheel-drive vehicles, such as the and . Hester’s final 3 years at Holden was as the Technical Assistant for the Holden CEO where he assisted across the Holden global business operations including Sales & Marketing, Manufacturing, IT, Purchasing, Engineering, Design and Finance.

Hester earned a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from Latrobe University in Victoria, Australia in 1994.