Top 50 Rising Stars 2021 continued (in alphabetical order by CVC unit): Wade Sheffer, managing director, GM Ventures
GM Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of US-based carmaker General Motors (GM), named Wade Sheffer managing director in April 2018.
Matt Tsien, executive vice-president and chief technology officer of GM and president of GM Ventures, said in his nomination: “Wade’s leadership is a significant driving force in our success at GM Ventures.
“His ability to recognise and cultivate the potential within a startup has led to some really exciting investment opportunities, furthering our work toward a future with zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion.”
GM Ventures concentrates on growth-stage developers of automotive clean technology, infotainment, advanced materials and other areas relevant to GM.
Before his GM Ventures appointment, Sheffer had been executive director of chassis purchasing for nearly four years from 2014, where he procured chassis-related components for GM vehicles globally.
Sheffer joined GM in 1996 as a lead project engineer at the firm’s Structural Test Lab at the Milford Proving Ground, before transferring to the North America Outbound Logistics quality team three years later.
He spent three years from 2002 as Germany-based European regional manager, where he worked on Vector joint venture operations, between GM and Menlo Worldwide, a subsidiary of Con-Way.
Sheffer returned to the United States in 2005 and took up an infotainment-focused global commodity manager position, before relocating to the Chinese city of Shanghai the year after as deputy executive director at Shanghai General Motors, where he oversaw procurement.
In 2009, Sheffer moved back to the US for a number of leadership roles in global purchasing and supply chain, which involved him leading service components and accessories purchasing for GM dealerships worldwide as purchasing executive director of GM customer care and aftersales.
Sheffer obtained a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Michigan Technological University in 1996 and holds a master of science in engineering with a focus on technology management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2000.
