Meet G.M.'s New CEO, Dan Akerson

General Motors welcomed Daniel Akerson, the company’s new CEO, to its executive order on Thursday—and, boy oh boy, does he have quite a few shoes to fill. (Akerson’s the company’s fourth chief executive in less than two years.) The good news: The 61-year-old seems to be a good fit for the job. A former telecommunications executive with MCI and Nextel, Akerson has “a knack for parachuting in, surveying the landscape, and making operational and financial changes,” The New York Times reports. “Akerson is first-rate in understanding finance, but he also is an operating guy,” said Howard Anderson, a professor at the MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Even other executives praise him. “He thinks this is very much in the national interest,” Kenneth Chenault, CEO of American Express, said of Akerson's new job.