New year, new decade... new chapter!

Last week I wrapped up my tenure with GE, one of the world’s truly great companies.

Some in my position might contemplate this moment with a degree of sadness but in truth the only feelings I carry are serenity and gratitude. You see I always considered it a privilege to work for GE, right from the very start when the company took a bet on me. In retrospect, it’s thanks to GE’s vibrant learning culture that I was afforded the opportunity to execute a mid-career change into financial services having spent the previous decade driving sales in an industrial setting. I can’t think of many companies that take such a broad and long view on its people, seeing more potential in them than they are willing to recognize in themselves. All along, I knew that the effect of GE’s culture was going to be deep and transformative.

Probably for this reason, I never once took for granted my time with GE. In turn, this awareness kept me hungry. It kept me grateful. And in a way it protected me from any feeling of entitlement that would have dampened this moment. Shortly after having accepted the offer to join GE, I remember receiving a welcome package including a short video in which our Chairman explained: “we don’t guarantee lifetime employment but if you stick around long enough you’ll be employable for life.” Say what you will about leadership legacies but this one sentence sold me. In short, I viewed every day with GE as a gift.

Looking back, it has been a pleasure and an honor to address GE’s evolving challenges, learning alongside innumerable talented colleagues from around the world during this period of tremendous change, from managing through the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s to adapting to unprecedented levels of globalization and assimilating unimaginable levels of digitization.

Over these tumultuous 13 years, GE also stood beside me during times of enormous personal challenge and none more so than when my wife – then 33 – was diagnosed terminally ill. In the difficult run up to her life-saving double lung transplant in 2010 and many times thereafter, I remember feeling supported by countless managers and coworkers as I pulled myself and my family over those hurdles. Undoubtedly, I am a better person because of these experiences and the fortune of having been with GE during those trying times.

So yes, I’ve officially left GE however I will not be leaving the many friendships forged and lessons learned. In closing, I want to thank all the colleagues, team members and leaders with whom I worked over the years, for your trust, support, patience and generosity. And while I’m working on my next chapter I do so with all the positive energy, curiosity and rigor that GE instilled in me over the past 13 years.

Be well, do good – and stay tuned!

Michael