General Motors Co. appointed two new directors, including tech-industry veteran Meg Whitman, her first high-profile move since the unraveling last year of her media-startup Quibi Holdings LLC.
GM said Thursday that Ms. Whitman, the former chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard and eBay Inc., and Mark Tatum, the NBA’s deputy commissioner, joined its board effective immediately. The 51-year-old Mr. Tatum has been the NBA’s chief operating officer since 2014, overseeing the league’s push into international markets.
The appointments add to a GM board that corporate-governance groups have praised for its diversity, especially its inclusion of women, who now occupy seven of its 13 board seats. That includes CEO and Chairman Mary Barra.
The auto maker is among the 5% of companies in the Russell 3000 Index—which includes nearly all publicly traded U.S. companies—at which women account for at least half of the directors, according to the advocacy group 50/50 Women on Boards.
The subject of board diversity has come into sharper focus in the past year amid broader debates over social inequality and racial injustice.
