GM's Ad Chief Docherty Will Keep Her Hands Off Ads

[Bruce Nunnally]

Susan Docherty

"Susan is more than capable of doing the job," said Mark LaNeve, a mentor of Ms. Docherty's who left GM in October and is now CMO at Allstate. The position "is a very big job and it's a lot easier when the market is good than when the market is bad."

In fact, Ms. Docherty will oversee a trimmed down but still huge budget at GM, which spent $1.15 billion in U.S. measured media in the first nine months of 2009, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Before the automaker pared its brands and sought a government bailout, it was the country's fourth-largest advertiser last year.

"She does not have a lot of experience in advertising, but there aren't that many people in GM who do," said Keith Spondike, who worked with Ms. Docherty in the late 1990s when she handled U.S.-exported products in Europe and he was international marketing manager at GM in Detroit.

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