Dan Ammann, CEO of GM’s Cruise Autonomous-Vehicle Unit, Is Leaving the Company

Mr. Ammann, a New Zealand native, spent several years as GM’s president before moving on to run Cruise in early 2019. While GM’s president and Ms. Barra’s No. 2 executive, Mr. Ammann was credited with shaping a strategy to shrink GM’s global footprint, including the sale of its European business, to sharpen its focus on electric and driverless technology.

In October, Mr. Ammann outlined for investors an ambitious target for Cruise to roll out thousands of robot taxis across U.S. cities in the coming years. He told analysts at a GM investor conference that he saw a path for Cruise to achieve $50 billion in revenue by the end of the decade.

GM said in a statement Thursday that it would accelerate the strategy that Mr. Ammann laid out to investors. GM’s shares were down 2.4% Thursday in after-hours trading.

Mr. Ammann led GM’s 2016 acquisition of Cruise for about $1 billion. The San Francisco company has grown to about 2,000 employees from about 40 and has attracted big investors, including Japan’s

SoftBank Group Corp.

,

Microsoft Corp.

and strategic investor

Honda Motor Co.

Cruise was valued at about $30 billion earlier this year, GM said. Analysts have been encouraged by Cruise’s potential, saying in the wake of GM’s investor day that the unit’s market worth could one day eclipse that of GM itself.

“If Cruise achieves its targets, it could arguably see a path to valuation in the hundreds of billions,” Credit Suisse analyst

Dan Levy

wrote.

Cruise, which has been testing self-driving cars for years on San Francisco streets, is viewed by analysts as a leader in autonomous-vehicle technology. Still, like many other driverless-car developers, it delayed commercialization plans in recent years amid the technical challenges of refining robot cars.

Mr. Ammann joined GM as treasurer in 2010 after a decade as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. He was heavily involved in GM’s initial public offering that year and soon was named CFO at age 38.

Also this week, GM said its head of innovation, engineer

Pam Fletcher,

will leave to become

Delta Air Lines Inc.’s

chief sustainability officer.

Write to Mike Colias at [email protected]