In 2000, he told us, for a story about , that: "I have always been a businessperson first and a technologist second. And even though I've been in technology jobs, my work had to change the bottom line of business." Simply, the technology didn't interest him unless it affected change to the business process.

Network World named him one of its "Most Powerful People in Networking" numerous times, and Szygenda also belongs to CIO Magazine's CIO Hall of Fame.

Szygenda joined GM in 1996 from Bell Atlantic, where he was vice president and CIO. Before that, he held a slew of IT jobs at Texas Instruments.

The group vice president is being replaced as CIO by Terry Kline, currently GM's process information officer for product development.