Jack Welch is the most famous CEO in the world. His 20-year reign as the head of General Electric brought the company from bureaucratic behemoth to dynamic and revered powerhouse. During his tenure, GE market value grew from $13 billion to $500 billion. In the process, Welch’s management innovations have made him the most influential CEO of his era. In April 1981, Welch assumed the helm of GE and it was here that his legacy would begin. In a series of controversial decisions and tough calls, Welch began to transform the company. Part of that transformation was to make GE a people company where ideas flourished and boundaries disappeared. Welch pressed his theory of a “boundaryless” culture in which all levels of the company participated in innovation and problem solving. In his second decade, Welch focused on four basic initiatives: Globalization, Services, Six-Sigma, and e-business. During globalization, Welch traveled the world making deals in such countries as China, in Japan, in India, and in Hungary, where he completed the first big deal in the New Eastern Europe. The services division, meanwhile, grew from $8 billion in 1995 to $19 billion in 2001 under Welch’s leadership. The Six Sigma effort, a mathematically grounded program that improves processes, decreases variance, and creates more perfect products while reducing costs, was launched in 1996. Welch came to recognize the enormous impact this technology would have on the company. e-business allowed GE to expand its markets, find new customers, and make its supplier base more global. In his recently published book, JACK: Straight from the Gut, Welch gives a candid, engaging account of his rise to the top, his tenure there, and the perspectives and lessons he learned along the way. On September 7, 2001, Jack Welch said goodbye to GE, and its people, who have comprised the whole of his business life. He appointed Jeff Immelt to succeed him and set in place a staff that he believes will support his successor.
Jack Welch