At least one manager at General Motors is keeping an eye on the road. The newly appointed CIO of GM Asset Management Corp., Taiwan-born Tony Kao, is the architect of a fixed-income strategy that invested 52 percent of GM’s pension plan in bonds at the end of 2006, a move that softened the blow of the stock market crash in 2008. The result? According to Kao, "excellent," compared with other large corporate plans, even though the fund, which had $104 billion at the end of 2007, lost a $19 billion surplus last year. The plan was underfunded by 1.8 percent as of October 31, 2008, according to company documents. This year, Kao, 53, plans to take a cautious approach. "We are doing a pretty good job of making sure we don’t catch a falling knife," says the New York University Stern School of Business graduate.