As the nation marks the 10-year anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, General Electric Co. reaches its own milestone ”“ a decade under Jeff Immelt, who replaced legendary CEO Jack Welch four days before 9/11.
If Immelt”™s job is less hectic today compared to those taxing first days as CEO, as the Fairfield-based company donated $10 million to relief efforts and made other moves to reinforce confidence in the overall markets, it is hardly an easy job as GE works to win back the accolades investors heaped on his predecessor.
Under Immelt, GE has evolved into a more collaborative organization than the win-at-all-costs machine “Neutron Jack” Welch built, according to author David Magee who in 2009 published “Jeff Immelt and the New GE Way.” At the same time, the company has won derision in some quarters, from the general public aghast at reports that GE paid no income taxes in the Great Recession year of 2009 to some sophisticated businesspeople who see that and other GE moves as merely a shell game to disguise weakness in its financial and operational foundation.
A GE spokesman declined to make Immelt available for an interview, citing a busy schedule. In 2006, however, Immelt reflected on the five-year anniversary of his getting the top job with BusinessWeek. At that point, he was ensconced on Barron”™s annual list of the top CEOs in the world, an accolade he no longer enjoys.
“The first year was tougher than I could imagine,” Immelt told the magazine. “You had 9/11, Enron and the recession. The way CEOs and companies were viewed changed 180 degrees in 15 minutes. I was a rookie CEO. ”¦ following the most famous guy in history. But the times were extremely different for my predecessor. The late 1990s was about every tree growing to the sky and admiration of CEOs.”
At a mid-August public-policy forum sponsored by his alma mater Dartmouth College, Immelt did not exactly receive a rock-star reception, but a polite one nonetheless. One audience member queried him on multinational companies like GE maintaining large overseas workforces, with the implications that has for developing stateside talent and tax revenue.
“I don”™t want you to root against us,” Immelt said. “That”™s not taking jobs out of the United States. That”™s being an exporter ”“ that”™s what we have to do. And so, in some ways we”™ve gotten this psychotic thing that anybody that does business outside the United States is a heathen, anti-American. ”¦ That”™s crap, OK? And in many ways I don”™t understand why we”™re rooting against companies that are out there competing, because we”™re creating good jobs here.”
It was Immelt whom President Obama named to lead a council on jobs and competitiveness, despite GE”™s track record during Immelt”™s decade as CEO in cutting jobs in the U.S. as it added them overseas. And since 2009, GE has announced multiple U.S. expansions both in its high-tech manufacturing and research operations as well as at GE Capital, which last year provided $90 billion in new loans to support U.S. companies and infrastructure projects while extending another $78 billion in credit to U.S. consumers.
Immelt has a decade to go before retirement age ”“ a decade to buff the famed GE logo to its onetime pristine sheen in the eyes of investors and the public.
“Criticism is what it is ”“ I don”™t blame people who just read it on face value,” Immelt said. “It is what it is and I understand why people pay attention to it, but the story”™s more subtle than that, you know? And that”™s what frequently doesn”™t get described.”
