Roy Roberts Biography
Roy S. Roberts was appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder in May 2011 to serve as Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager.
Mr. Roberts, who was most recently Managing director at Reliant Equity Investors, has decades of managerial, financial and organizational experience, having served as the highest-ranking African-American executive in the U.S. automobile industry as Group Vice President for North American Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing of General Motors Corporation from July 1998 to April 2000.
Prior to that, Mr. Roberts also served as Vice President and Group Executive, North American Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing of General Motors Corporation from October 1998 to April 2000. He was Vice President and General Manager in charge of Field Sales, Service and Parts for the Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing Group of General Motors Corporation from August 1998 to October 1998.
He served as General Manager of the Pontiac-GMC Division from February 1996 to October 1998, presiding over the merger of Pontiac-GMC. Mr. Roberts is the first at GM to lead such a merger, which necessitated combining the marketing and staff of those two divisions into one streamlined workforce, and bringing 21st century innovations and cost-efficiencies to the new Pontiac-GMC.
His goal, according to an interview in Black Enterprise Magazine, was to create “the most valuable customer-focused car and truck enterprise in the country, supported by the most highly motivated, skilled, committed employees and dealer organization.”
Prior to the merger, he served as General Manager of the GMC Truck Division from 1992 to 1996.
Mr. Roberts took his first job at General Motors in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1977, serving as a trainee in the diesel equipment division, but was given the position of plant manager just four years later, having been credited with excelling and having learned so much in that role.
He became Corporate Officer of General Motors Corporation in April 1987 and served as Manufacturing Manager of General Motors Corporation's North American Operations Flint Automotive Division from 1992 and Manufacturing Manager of its Cadillac Motor Car Division from 1990 to 1992.
“I’m not the kind of person who can watch the gate for you,” he said in an interview with Black Enterprise. “I’m not the kind of manager who maintains the status quo. Every day I come to work and think very seriously about how I can make things better. If I can't, what's the point?”
Mr. Roberts prides himself in knowing every aspect of an organization, having worked his way through the GM to become a union steward and plant manager, before reaching the top echelon as an executive.
Between 1981 and 1987, he assumed several plant management positions within the company, most notably in Rochester, New York and Tarrytown, New York. As a manager, Roberts earned a reputation as a tough but compassionate person who tried to streamline operations without resorting to the massive, morale- breaking layoffs so common during the era, according to Gale Contemporary Black Biography. “I never minimize the people side of the business,” Roberts explained in Business Week. “That's one thing I learned as an hourly worker, a [United Auto Workers] member, and an employee coming up through the ranks.”
The rewards of compassionate management practices became apparent in Tarrytown, when African American assembly line workers met secretly with Roberts and guided him step by step through the entire manufacturing process, according to the Gale biography. “After hours, when only certain guards were on duty, they took me through my paces,” Roberts said in Black Enterprise. “They taught me how to build a car. They wanted me to succeed.”
In 1987, Roberts was named vice president for personnel at the Tarrytown plant. He briefly left GM in 1988 to become Vice President and General Manager, Truck Operations for Navistar International Corporation in Chicago but returned, having discovered his business philosophies differed from the company executives and returned to GM in 1990, assuming the role manufacturing manager for the Cadillac Motor Car Company.
Before his 23-year career with General Motors, Mr. Roberts spent 17 years with the Aerospace division of Lear-Siegler Corporation serving in a variety of positions in engineering, plant management, materials management, manufacturing, sales, personnel and labor relations.
Mr. Roberts is very active in his community, playing leading roles in numerous social and civic organizations. He has headed NAACP organizations at the local level and has served as a Trustee Emeritus at Western Michigan University; he served as President and on the National Board of Directors for the Boy Scouts of America; and has served on the Board of National Urban League and the United Negro College Fund, and the Aspen Institute. He is a major contributor to the Detroit Institute of Arts and the museum has renamed a contemporary African American art gallery for Mr. Roberts and his wife, Maureen.
Mr. Roberts earned a degree in Business Administration from Western Michigan University and completed the Executive Development Program at Harvard Business School and the General Motors Advanced International General Management Program in Switzerland.
The son of a factory worker and the second-youngest of ten children, he began his career as an assembly line worker at General Motors and worked full-time at night to earn his Bachelor’s degree. Born in Magnolia, Mr. Roberts moved with his father and siblings to Michigan after his mother died when Mr. Roberts was two years old. Throughout his childhood, Mr. Roberts’ father strongly encouraged him as his siblings to value education, and all children attained a bachelor's degree or higher.
Mr. Roberts is married with children.
Mr. Roberts was named Executive of the Year by both Black Enterprise and African Americans on Wheels magazines. He was given the American Success Award from President George Bush and has numerous honorary degrees.
