Biography

Jeff IMMELT

2009 ranking: 38

Jeff Immelt

Jeffrey R. Immelt (b.1956) took over the reins at General Electric in 2001 from the near-legendary Jack Welch. A native of Cincinnati Ohio he studied Applied Mathematics at Dartmouth College before earning an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He joined GE in 1982 and eventually rose through GE’s varied operational fields to the position of senior Vice President of General Electric and President and CEO of its Medical Systems division, now known as GE Healthcare.

As a busy executive of a multi-billion dollar business, Jeff Immelt does not have time to put any of his ideas about management and business into print. As he says on his company website he is “out talking about this company seven days a week, 24 hours a day, with nothing to hide.

However, words occasionally fall from his lips, especially in the form of commencement addresses to graduates in the various institutions which have awarded him honorary degrees, as well as events like the Alumni conference of the Indian Institute of Technology. These have demonstrated a business leader who is clearly comfortable with globalization and doing business in a global setting. He sees emerging economies such as India and China as offering limitless opportunities. He also sees India’s economy as having a role similar to that of Japan twenty-five years’ ago.

The world can be made a better place in four ways, he has said, through

1. Solving a problem.
2. Redeployment of resources to profitable areas.
3. Allowing people to achieve lower costs.
4. Allowing the creation of new business models.

One of the greatest problems is the economics of scarcity; the shortage of natural resources (including water), as well as raw materials. Other problems include energy independence, and lowering green-house gas emissions.

GE and Immelt have made significant commitments to cutting their own emissions levels as part of the Ecomagination strategy. This was established in 2005 with the aim of more than tripling GE’s revenue from environmentally friendly products. Immelt says that this is “… a clear amplifier of our strong reputation for innovation and execution, harnessing the strength of every GE business to maximize returns for GE investors while minimizing our own energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.” He believes that this is more than “green-wash”: it is about “eco-driven products that will earn money by solving society’s problems” such as refrigerators and light-bulbs that only use half of the energy of conventional products. “Ecomagination” includes commitments such as a company-wide reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; doubling investment in “clean” research and development; increasing the number of “ecomagination” products; reducing the company’s worldwide environmental footprint; and reduction of the use of fresh water by GE.

A lot of this is pioneering, and it has placed him on a collision course with more conservative corporate elements. He has not been afraid to court controversy. He supports government legislation to halt global warming. This has led to an intemperate outburst against him by the Action Fund Management (AFM), the investment adviser to the Free Enterprise Action Fund. AFM has denounced him as a “Benedict Arnold CEO”, pointing out GE’s low stock price. Not surprisingly, this is accompanied by exhortations to GE’s board to dump Immelt.

Essential Reading:

www.ge.com/company/leadership/ceo.html

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