An Auto Designer at GM Says Getting an MBA Helped Her ‘Stand Out’

In almost 30 years at General Motors Co., Crystal Windham has left her mark on the cars Americans drive—and on the auto industry itself. In 2008, she made GM history as the first Black woman appointed to serve as a design director. Today, as the automaker’s global executive director of industrial design, Windham has the final say on the colors, materials, finishes, interior hardware, and more for every GM vehicle.

Windham started at the company as an intern while studying industrial design at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit and was hired after earning her undergraduate degree in 1994. Two years later, spurred on by her mom, she enrolled at University of Detroit Mercy’s College of Business Administration. She attended night school off and on over the next seven years before graduating in 2003. She did much of her homework at the office—giving her a deeper understanding of what she was studying.