General Motors has hired Jessica Wang as executive director of content strategy.
Wang took on the role last month and said in a LinkedIn post that he accepted the role “to tell the transformation story of an American cornerstone company that could have played it safe, but instead decided to envision an all-electric, autonomous future.”
Despite some setbacks in its strategy, GM still plans to phase out gasoline and diesel vehicles entirely by 2035 and evolve into a fully electric company.
Wang said GM is building a storytelling engine and her team is hiring for two roles: an editorial producer/writer and a video content creator.
Wang was unavailable for further comment.
Prior to joining GM, Wang served as head of YouTube’s editorial and creative hub since 2019, where he led a team developing brand strategies to expand reach across different demographics and topics. According to his LinkedIn profile, he also worked on YouTube blogging, creator liaison, social media and video engagement, and created engagement plans for executives that included speaking content, industry events, interviews, editorials and videos.
“Anyone who knows me knows how much I love everything about YouTube — the culture, the creators, the community — it’s truly special,” Wang wrote on LinkedIn. “For me to leave YouTube would have to be a special occasion.”
Wang is the latest GM communications team to hire from a top Silicon Valley firm. Google’s Lin-Hua Wu joined GM as its top communications officer last August. Wang took over from Craig Buchholz, now U.S. CEO of Burson, and joined just a year after Buchholz restructured the company’s global communications leadership team to address higher priorities, increase career advancement opportunities and boost diversity among senior executives.
This year, Wu was named to PRWeek’s Power List.
Daniel Roberts, Facebook’s former head of national policy communications, also spent two years at GM before rejoining Meta earlier this year.
GM’s revenue rose 7.6% in the first quarter, up from about $40 billion in the same period last year. Net income for the quarter increased about 26% to $2.95 billion. The Detroit-based auto giant is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings on July 23.
This story first appeared in PRWeek US.